one adj.
used with a n. to emphasize a comment, e.g. one serious boy, one angry young man; esp. as abbr./euph. for one hell of a at hell of a, a under hell n.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | diary n.d. in One Man’s War (1928) 23: I sure was one happy boy. | |
| Black Mask Aug. III 34: Jerome Ormond was one sweet baby. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | One Jamaica Gal 22: Lawd, but the ‘missis’ is one sweet lady [...] an’ Mister Hilary am sweet too but him too foo-foo. | |
| Letters Home (1944) 2 Feb. 5: Yup that was one swell battle! | |
| Lonely Boy Blues (1965) 26: Oh, ain’t he one dirty pink! | |
| Sweet Ride 152: That Artie [...] that is one great American! | |
| Last Detail 97: He’s one smart honcho, that’s for sure. | |
| A-Team 2 (1984) 23: That Maloney’s one tough dude ain’t he? | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Yes We Have No 312: I am one guilty teenager. | |
| Deuce’s Wild 46: ‘You one polite motherfucker,’ T-Mo said. | |
| Locked Ward (2013) 263: ‘That’s one strong bastard,’ said one of the policemen admiringly. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(US campus) a very ugly person.
| Sl. U. |
(N.Z. prison) a junior prison officer.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 130/2: onebar n. a junior prison officer. |
an instance of breaking wind.
 | ‘Breaking Story’ New Times 🌐 It’s all part of the considerable strength of brown air, the ability of the lowly one-cheek squeak to unnerve the upper strata of the media. |
(N.Z. prison) $10.00.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 130/2: one dollar n. $10. |
(US) an obscene gesture of contempt.
| diary in Elkins Heart of a Man (1973) 17: We have a picture of the Russian tail gunner [...] giving one of our F-8 pilots the international one-finger salute, the bird. | |
| Llama Parlour 176: Carl slammed down his marking tape. ‘This behaviour is just not acceptable!’ Tash replied with a one-fingered salute. | |
| Daily Star 16 Mar. n.p.: But just three hours later, she was back in front of the lenses as she left, giving onlookers the one-finger salute after collapsing on the floor. | |
| Hard Bounce [ebook] I clipped a sharp one-fingered salute at them as they retreated. | |
| California Bear 47: Hightower allowed the Audi to pass but raised a one-finger salute to send it off. |
manual stimulation of the vagina or clitoris.
| Sex-Lexis 🌐 female masturbation: do a one-finger exercise. |
a pornographic magazine, used as an aid to masturbation.
| Essay 593: Penthouse would pay even more although he doesn’t want it to appear in a one-hand magazine. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Gay Perspectives 54: In prisons and the military one-handed reading matter is stick-books, while prisoners also talk about bat material. | |
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: art pamphlet n. A jazz mag; one handed reading material. | |
| Nekkid in Austin 41: SOF may be the only one-hand magazine whose readers hold a surplus-store bayonet in the other hand. | |
| Bad Wank Day on FunnyDaze.co.uk 🌐 The pages of the one handed reading material, although filled with pictures of scantily glad beautiful women, lacked the degree of pornographic filth that I need to get off. | |
| Introduction in Pulling a Train’ [ebook] One-handed reading material, intended to keep truck drivers entertained in roadside toilets. |
1. (orig. US) of places, insignificant; esp. as one-horse town n., a small town of no importance.
| Western Police Gaz. (Cincinnati, OH) 29 Mar. n.p.: Those boys who frequent that one-horse grocery [etc]. | |
| Criminal Life (Boston) 19 Dec. n.p.: Billy McH—h, whose father keeps a one-horse whiskey mill. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Bombay Gaz. 29 Dec. 2/6: Yankeedom could not afford to go to war with Brazil which it calls in contemptuous slang a one horse power. | |
| Life of Adventure II 34: Sydney was not such a go-ahead place as the capital of Victoria. [...] After the noise and stir of Melbourne, it seemed what the Yankees would call a very ‘one-horse sort of a place’. | |
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 104: Those gentlemen, Major, don’t want to come all the way over here to eat a dinner at a one-horse country tavern. | |
| Gabriel Conroy I 97: It was a season of unexampled prosperity in One Horse Gulch. | |
| Lantern (N.O.) 29 Oct. 3: He keeps a one-horse grocery. | |
| Sporting Times 22 Mar. 2/2: There’s no tape, no ‘special,’ nor anything in this swivel-eyed, one-hoss hole! | |
| ‘The Boss of the Admiral Lynch’ in Man from Snowy River (1902) 121: And the king of ’em all, I reckon, the man that could stand a pinch, / Was the boss of a one-horse gunboat. They called her the ‘Admiral Lynch’. | |
| Landlord at Lion’s Head 143: We don’t run the house like his one-horse European hotels. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Sept. 4/7: Whatcher call this poverty-stricken, God-forsaken, one-hoss settlement? | |
| ‘The Defeat of the City’ in Voice of the City (1915) 85: ‘Bob’ abandoned the certain three-per-diem meals of the one-horse farm for the discontinuous quick lunch counters of the three-ringed metropolis. | |
| Types From City Streets 286: It was a one-horse language; it was a mere dialect. | |
| Shorty McCabe on the Job 117: Of all the forsaken, dreary, one-mule towns along the line that was the worst. | |
| Psmith Journalist (1993) 188: Gadding about, now to Philadelphia [...] anon to Onehorseville. | |
| Gay-cat 62: The post office in thet little one-horse town [...] was good pickin’s. | |
| Haxby’s Circus 16: Forty miles between here and the next one-horse town. | |
| Travels of Tramp-Royal 172: Aviemore is merely a one-horse hamlet where motorists pull up to fill up. | |
| Tramp and Other Stories 23: Fat old fool. No wonder they left him here in this one-pub town. | |
| You’re in the Racket, Too 62: I’ll get you a better ken than this one-horse dump of yourn. | |
| Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 276: Always was a one-horse town. | |
| letter 7 Dec. in Proud Highway (1997) 143: One-horse gossip sheets and country weeklies. | |
| Horses in Kitchen 121: My favourite town is strictly a one-horse town on the Queensland coastline. | |
| All Bull 34: Ask some of these fornicating friggers who live in this one-horse town! | |
| Quiet Fire 161: It’s really changed from the one-horse town I knew. | |
| Sun. Trib. 10 Feb. 8/3: Holywell is a one-horse town half-way between Holihead and Wrexham. | |
| (con. 1960s) Blood Brothers 105: I want all you dog-people of this one-horse town to know I am still military commander of this area. | |
| Robbers (2001) 244: You need to get outa this onehorse town, bro. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘A bit of land in a one-horse town’. | |
| Stoning 118: ‘[N]o-one gives a toss about protocol in a one-horse town’. |
2. of individuals, second-rate, petty; usu. of politicians, minor officials.
| City of the Saints 304: They have been served with ‘small fry’ politicians and ‘one-horse’ officials. | |
| My Diary in America II 94: The negro will put you down as a ‘mean cuss,’ a ‘one-horse’ sort of a person. | |
| Mitre Court II 116: Send it round to my own poor little one-horse money-changer. | |
| Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 2 Aug. 11/2: [S]ome one-horse spouter in a one-horse town. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Dec. 21/1: A weariful sign of the times is the little one-horse nonentity who writes an enormously wordy letter to the British Premier to tell that complete stranger that he, the nonentity aforesaid, is strongly loyal to the township of God-for-gotten. | |
| Haunch Paunch and Jowl 132: Puffed-up one-horse politicians. |
masturbation.
| ‘Hey Hey Take Me Away’ 🎵 There’s nutters in here who whistle and cheer / When they’re watching a one-legged race. | |
| ‘Maxim Thesaurus’ Maxim Jun. 🌐 One-legged race: ‘What are you doing in there, Jimmy?’ ‘Just having a one-legged race, Mom.’. |
a style of skirt, tight and straight, popular in the 1890s.
| Daily News 18 Apr. Ladies in the latest ‘one-leg-trouser’ fashion from Paris. |
1. (US) a single-cylinder vehicle, usu. a motorcycle.
| Side-Stepping with Shorty 90: Then me and Sadie in her bubble, towin’ the busted one-lunger behind . | |
| Knocking the Neighbors 52: It was a One-Lunger with a Wheel Base of nearly 28 inches. | |
| Last Exit to Brooklyn 83: He had this Indian — you know, one of those small jobs. Not a onelunger. |
2. (US Und.) a consumptive.
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. |
3. (US) any small or inferior set-up or device.
| Amer. Thes. Sl. |
4. (US) an eccentric.
| Guardian Rev. 14 Apr. 11: Cranks and misfits and one-lungers. |
a condom.
| DSUE (8th edn) 832: since ca. 1950. | |
| Indep. Rev. 1 Oct. 5: ‘Curses,’ he said. ‘I’ve no Reggie and Ronnies about my person. Could you oblige me with a one-piece overcoat?’. |
In phrases
see under ...short of... adj.
a blind person or a person with one eye.
| Cockney 275: A person who is either blind, or short of, an eye, and who is an object of dislike, is referred to as ‘one eye and a winkle’ or ‘... a whelk’. |
(bingo) the number eight.
| www.ildado.com 🌐 Bingo Nicknames [...] 8... One fat lady. |
(US black) the ideal soulmate, considerate, sympathetic and prob. sexy too.
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
(US) second-rate, inadequate.
| Red Harvest (1965) 36: He ought to know what a swell chance he’s got of hanging a one-legged rap like that on me. |
see under ...short of... adj.
see under ...short of... adj.
see under skin n.1
see under ...short of... adj.