Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) to desert a partner, sexual or professional.

1914		Sport (Adelaide) 27 Feb. 6/1: They Say [...] That K. O. has got very sweet on a tart at Fords. Toss her lad, she is the wrong kind.
1926		‘Und. and Its Vernacular’ in Clues mag. 158–62: tossed Deserted, as by a woman or a partner.

2. (US black) to beat up; thus tossing n., a beating.

1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 16: I’ll give you a tossing you’ll never forget.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 181: We headed for Rikers to spend sleepless nights listening to jet airplanes take off and land and niggers getting tossed.

3. to overcome.

1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 63: Well we tossed ’em nine years ago and we’ve tossed ’em since and we’ll go on tossing ’em.
1973		F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 31: [of begging] I was becoming proud of my ability to toss a difficult bite.

4. (Aus.) to criticize harshly, to assault verbally.

1955

D. Niland Shiralee 130: Cripes, you tossed him, didn’t you? Neat as sixpence.

5. (US campus) to vomit.

1951		(con. 1910s) S.Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 11: ‘I ate too much, Katie.’ ‘Don’t you dare toss it up, my fine lady!’.
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 99: Heaving, tossing, blowing your lunch (cookies).
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 289: Makes me sick, too, I gotta tell you. Nearly tossed my black beans.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.

6. to throw out, throw away.

1960		P. Rabe Murder Me for Nickels (2004) 30: Our statistical branch figures out [...] how soon to toss the slow ones, before we lose money.
1973		E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 192: I finished the cigar and tossed the butt.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 11: Mighty god, without which no case gets tossed.
1986		R. Campbell In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 115: Get the fuck off my set or I’ll have you tossed.
1992		G.P. Pelecanos Firing Offense 213: There was a phone bill, which I kept, and a credit card offer, which I tossed.
2003		J. Ellroy ‘Stephanie’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 69: I mentioned bedspread DNA. Marcia said a cop tossed it [...] Some cop on a spring-cleaning kick.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] ‘Why did you toss him?’.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 77: ‘If you don’t have to use them [i.e. guns], you can keep ’em. If you do, we break ’em down and toss them’.

7. (orig. US prison) to search an apartment, car or person, esp. for weapons etc.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 225/1: Toss, v. [...] 2. (P) To search [cells] for contraband, stolen goods, etc.
1952		E. Reid Mafia 66: The Manhattan crossed the Atlantic for a year carrying 125 pounds of opium and 20 kilos of heroin. She was ‘tossed’ at every port until the cache was discovered.
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 134: I don’t get tossed too often. One time I got tossed three days in a row. [...] But they never find anything on me. [...] I’ve almost always got works or pills or something. But they can’t look where I carry the things.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 190: You two guys wait outside while me and Nat toss him.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 216: He was a dealer. Murphy could toss him right now. He’d probably find enough dope on the dude to send him away for fifteen to life. But the case would be thrown out for illegal search.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 37: Jack pistol-whipped Weiskopf, tossed his pad.
2003		T. Dorsey Stingray Shuffle 267: He got home and found his loft apartment had been tossed.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 28: The inmates are instructed to raise their hands to speak to a Captain if they have any queastions about how an Officer is tossing their cell.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘The munatj were here about twenty minutes ago, gave the house a tossing’.
2017		S.M. Jones August Snow [ebook] ‘Want me to toss the bitch?’.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 75: ‘Burglars [...] Same shitbirds who tossed my apartment’.

8. (US) to bribe.

1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 77: So maybe they toss a numbers runner for a coupla dollars.
1973		E.F. Droge Patrolman 39: It is his job to type up a request for departmental recognition, but tradition dictates you ‘toss him a pound’ (five dollars) for the service.

9. to take money from.

1981

H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 35: Think of all the money you’ll save on pipejobs [...] You won’t have to be tossin’ those hookers at Hunts Point every night.

10. to stop someone in a car and subject them to a search.

1999		Observer Mag. 26 Sept. 27: He was playacting with two young people [...] whom he pretended to have stopped – or, in ghetto parlance ‘tossed’ – in a car.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 338: Whenever he or any of his boys came [...] to check their [drug] spots, Gio and I made sure to pull them over and toss them.

11. (US) to expose someone as a homosexual against their will; thus tossing n.

1990

Atlanta Journal/Constitution 23 Mar. C-4/1: But outing, or ‘tossing’ as it’s also called, is not confined to dead folks incapable of having their privacy invaded or being libeled and retaliating with law suits.

12. (also toss up) of a man, to have sexual intercourse.

2008		in J. Miller Getting Played 143: ’She said “No” and he smacked her and tossed her up [had sex with/raped her]’.
2012		J. Díaz This Is How You Lose Her 32: For a couple of months she got tossed by those cats from Parkwood.