Green’s Dictionary of Slang

son of a... n.

Euphs. for sonofabitch n.

In compounds

son of a biscuit eater (n.) (also sonofabiscuit)(US)

1873		Bossier Banner (Bellevue, LA) 7 May 2/3: ‘The tow-headed nincompoop of the people’s Defender calls us a “red-headed cuss” — Villain, horse thief [...] copperhead son of a biscuit’.
1949		El Paso Times (TX) 24 Nov. 4/7: President Truman called Drew Pearson a ‘son-of-a-biscuit-eater’.
1950		WELS n.p.: (Humorous substitutes for stronger exclamations: ‘Why the son of a —’) [...] biscuit eater.
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 124: You better tell that half white sonofabiscuit he better stop jumping up in my face. [Ibid.] 181: You thick-head sonofabiscuit eater.
1963		L. Hughes Five Plays 139: arcie: Then come on, you great big no-good old bull-necked son-of-a-biscuit eater!
1979		Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) 8 Feb. 5/1: [He] would bang the long table and yell, ‘Son-of-a-biscuit, play the cards and stop gabbing!’.
1999		M.E. Mebane Mary 117: He inquired as to the cause of the fight, and one told him that the other one had called him the son of a biscuit eater.
2004		L. Underwood Bobwhite Quail Bk 307: So to avoid the danger and punishment and still get over the idea we had a way of saying, ‘son of a biscuit eater’.
2006		D.J. Wilson Barking Goats and the Redneck Mafia 142: ‘What are you trying to do, you inconsiderate, son of a biscuit eater?’ Carrie Sue sputtered.
2016		Smithville Times (TX) 24 Nov. PA3/1: ‘I was scared but i wasn’t going to turn that sonofabiscuit loose’.

son of a sea-cook (n.) (also son of assafoetida, son of a cook, ...cow-boy, …custard-maker, …fresh-water gudgeon, ...glister-pipe, ...greengrocer, …hickory, …horse-marine, …hoss thief, ...monkey, ...monkey’s uncle, ...mongrel, …sand turtle, …sawbuck, …sea-calf, ...sea-cook’s son, …sea-sarpint, …sheep-stealer, …shite-breeks, …shotten herring, …rip, …tinker, …toad, ...trumpet, ...turd)

1660		J. Tatham Rump I i: Our General, I mean Bertlam (not Woodfleet, that Son of a Custard-maker, always quaking), let us as bravely spend his this days benevolence as he nobly intended it.
1676		D’Urfey Madam Fickle V i: Trade! Thou son of Assafoetida! call a Gentlemans divertive Custome a Trade.
1690		Pagan Prince 73: What Son of a Mungrel’s that? quo the Palatine.
1694		D’Urfey Comical Hist. of Don Quixote Pt II IV iii: Why, ye damn’d Son of a Glister-pipe, must not I drink neither?
1700		N. Ward A Frolic to Horn-Fair 11: You Shitten Skull’d Son of a T—d [...] fit for nothing but to be cast into a Goldfinders Ditch.
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 356: Ahey! (cried he) are you there, you herring-fac’d son of a sea calf?
1805		J. Davis Post Captain (1813) 23: A son of a sea cook! if he was to fall over board, I would not heave him a rope.
1824		W. Scott St Ronan’s Well II 197: Why, you son of a fresh-water gudgeon, that never in your life sailed further than the Isle of Dogs.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 72: You d----d haymaking son of a sea-cook. Do it again, d--n your eyes, and I’ll cut your liver out.
1837		‘Who Milked My Cow?’ Bentley’s Misc. Jan. 66: You son of a shotten herring!
1848		W.E. Burton Waggeries and Vagaries 16: Make tracks out o’ my ship, you sammony-tailed son of a sea-cook.
1848		Glasgow Herald 25 Dec. 4/7: You confounded long-shore picked-up son of a greengrocer, what are you after?
1858		Huddersfield Chron. 29 May 3/1: ‘Ye parsnip-nosed, cabbage-faced son of a cow-boy’ [Ibid.] 3/1: ‘Ye red-livered son of a pagan!’.
1860		T. Haliburton Season Ticket 32: You scaly son of a sea-sarpint.
1865		H. Kingsley Hillyars and Burtons (1870) 331: Any other carroty-haired, ’possum-headed, forty acre, post and rail son of a seacook.
1873		Sl. Dict. 281: Sea-cook ‘son of a sea-cook,’ an opprobrious phrase used on board ship, differing from ‘son of a gun,’ which is generally used admiringly or approvingly.
1875		Cairo Bull. (IL) 24 Mar. 2/3: Can’t you see nothin’, you dash-dashed, aig-suckin’, sheep-stealin’, one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!
1875		Grange (MN) 6 July 3/2: A frog-eatin French son of a sea-cook.
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 10 Nov. 6/2: ‘You’re the coolest, brazenest, damned son of a sea cook that ever tried to play me for one’.
1884		W.C. Russell Jack’s Courtship I 179: He called me an ungrateful young son of a cook.
1887		G. Davis Recoll. Sea-Wanderer 38: [I'll] teach the son of a sea cook to stow himself away.
1888		Manchester Courier 10 Nov. 9/2: You d—d lubberly son of a sea calf!
1888		Manchester Courier 10 Nov. 9/2: You d—d herring-faced son of a sea calf, jump in .
1891		Punch 24 Jan. 37: How about ‘avast heaving’ and ‘shiver my timbers,’ and ‘son of a sea-cook,’ and all that?
1894		Truth (Sydney) 18 Mar. 2/6: Ef I knew th’ (most unmentionable) son of a (something) sea-cook who trew that sanguinary ‘slop’ I’d split his ruby snout.
1900		Sporting Times 10 Feb. 2/5: Sea cook’s son, son of a gun, son of a horse-marine, / Type of a carping renegade, with nothing good to say.
1903		J. Conrad Typhoon 170: Somebody told him to go and put his head in a bag. He regretted he could not recognize the voice, and that it was too dark to see, otherwise, as he said, he would have put a head on that son of a sea-cook, anyway, sink or swim.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 28 Dec. 1/1: One son of a sea cook traded under the name of my old pal ‘Woolly Rutledge’.
1907		J. London Road 199: Hit the grit, you son of a toad!
1910		E. Rosen In the Foreign Legion 44: ‘He’s a pretty hard case, ain't you, Blacky?’ ‘Shoore I am, you son-of-an-old-trumpet!’ grinned the negro.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 590: son of a hickory, n. [...] son of a tinker, n. A euphemism for son of a bitch. [...] son of a sawbuck, n. A very dull, wooden man. ‘Pick that up that rope, you son of a sawbuck.’.
1916		P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 187: I’ll bet a hat you telephoned that son of a sea cook.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 594: Anyhow in he rolled after his successful libation – cum – potation, introducing an atmosphere of drink into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like the veritable son of a seacook.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 48: G’wan, you son of a sheep-stealer.
1929		L. Thomas Woodfill of the Regulars 292: That yellow-bellied son of a sea cook.
1931		M. Sandoz ‘Sandhill Sundays’ in Botkin Folk-Say 300: Well you son of a sand turtle!
1933		G. Milburn No More Trumpets 38: Harry, you mangy old son of a hoss thief, you.
1936		M. Levin Old Bunch (1946) 101: I’m a son of a sea cook, there’s that lousy Dutchman.
1946		(con. 1912) B. Marshall George Brown’s Schooldays 86: Of course, you stinking son of a sea cook’s bathing pants.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 145: Son of a sea cook [....] All my life I wanted a good heavyweight, and what do they send me?
1949		I.L. Idriess One Wet Season 81: ‘So!’ roared Bullocky with pointed finger. ‘See what you’ve done, you son of a toad!’.
1957		(con. WWII) ‘Weldon Hill’ Onionhead (1958) 13: ‘I’ll be a son of a monkey’s uncle!’ Windy Woods bawled.
1961		(con. 1945) G. Forbes Goodbye to Some (1963) 119: ‘If I catch the son of a rip . . .’ He gives me a menacing smirk.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 24: You upjumped, downtrodden, uncivilized son of a seacook.
1993		I. Rankin Black Book (2000) 14: John bloody Rebus, you son of a shite-breeks!

son of a sheep (n.) (also son of an ape, son of a buck, son of a double-crossed cow, …fox, …mule, …she-dawg, …skunk, …slug, son-of-a-woodlouse)

1853		W.G. Simms Sword and the Distaff 507: A little mean copper-headed son of a skunk.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home (1906) 23: Pass the bread, you son of a skunk!
1910		H.G. Wells Hist. of Mr Polly (1946) 213: Come out and look me in the face, you squinting son of a Skunk!
1925		Z.N. Hurston Spunk (1995) 954: Ah’ll git the son-of-a-wood louse soon’s Ah get there an’ make hell too hot for him.
1927		(con. 1917) J. Stevens Mattock 2: Haul feet, you blue-cord son of an ape.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 123: March, you mealy-mouthed son of a she-dawg.
1934		B. Traven Death Ship 194: Thousand holy sons of skunks. Damn the whole—.
1936		Plainsman [film script] Bill Hickok, you ornery son of a mule [R].
1937		J. Worby Other Half 61: You son of a double-crossed cow!
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 25: Put a sock in it, you son of a sheep. [Ibid.] 62: I paid, thanks to that thieving son of a fox.
1990		P. Hotz Muzukuru 279: That Koshkosh – why’s the son of a slug taking so long?
2013		F. Bill Donnybrook [ebook] ‘You about a mean son of a buck’.

son of a son (n.)

1941

G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 76: C’mon, you parrot-faced son of a son, Barker, or whatever your name is.

son of a sow (gelder) (n.) (also son of a horned cow, …corby-crow, ...sow’s dam)

1611		Chapman May-Day II i: The son of a sow-gelder, that came to town [...] in a tattered russet coat, high shoes, and yet his hose torn above ’em; a long pike-staff in his neck (and a turd in his teeth).
1812		‘Hector Bull-us’ Diverting Hist. of John Bull and Brother Jonathan 70: S’blood, what d’ye mean, you bacon faced son of a horned cow.
1829		‘The New Policeman’ James Catnach in C. Hindley (1878) 211: The great big son of a sow, / Would send me to quod for one week.
1841		Odd Fellow (London) 23 Oct. 1/2: [pic. caption] ‘Told me so, you son of a sow’s dam’.
1855		C. Kingsley Westward Ho III 296: You scurvy, hang-in-the-wind, croaking, white-livered son of a corby-crow.
1941		P.C. Wren Odd – But Even So 22: You blithering son of a sow.

son of nobody out of nothing (n.)

1843

W.L. Rede Our Village II ii: Why, you son of nobody out of nothing!

son of your mother (n.) (also mother’s son, son-of-one’s-mother’s-misbehaviour, sonova granny’s)(US)

1932		C. McKay Gingertown 53: Whar’s dat fruit-eating sonova granny’s?
1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 210: Shut up, you damned black son of your mother!
1961		M. Braly Felony Tank (1962) 76: Can’t you see their faces when they come in here to count and there isn’t a mother’s son left in here?
1962		(con. WWII) J.O. Killens And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 46: Cut out the B.S., Corporal Solly, and tell this little jughead son-of-his-mother’s-misbehaviour something for his own good.

son of a what-not (n.)

1939

Wodehouse Uncle Fred in the Springtime 28: ‘[T]he shirking, skrimshanking, four-eyed young son of a what-not’.

son of a whore (n.)

1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 221: Pat Mahony, you son of a whore [...] an’t you asham’d of yourself .
1979		E/ Torres After Hours 4: The old man pointed his finger at Zack, then swept a horizontal line the length of the car. ‘Sons of fifty cent whores—all of you!’ .