Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a very large (unspecified) amount; thus tons n.

1770		P. Freneau in Brackenridge & Freneau Father Bombo’s Pilgrimage (1975) i iii 13: At my first dive I was drove to the bottom with such fury, that my head stuck a considerable time in a ton of mud .
1879		Sporting Times 1 Mar. 3/2: I missed a ton of money by not taking the long odds.
1895		Mirror of Life 5 Jan. 11/1: [A] once pedestrian celebrity, who left a ‘ton of money’ .
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 2/5: Westward Ho [i.e. a racehorse] [...] has cost his party a ton of money lately.
1914		Joyce ‘A Little Cloud’ Dubliners (1956) 73: I feel a ton better since I landed again in dear, dirty Dublin.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 136: That rat, Finnery, the trusty [...] has got a ton of it [i.e. morphine].
1938		D. Runyon ‘The Big Umbrella’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 553: I will become heavy-weight champion of the world as you say, and make a ton of money.
a.1948		(con. early 1930s) C. McKay Harlem Glory (1990) 39: I’ve heard a ton of tales about you.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 13: Dope sheets, showing what pigs are running at what tracks and how they’ve been running and a ton of other information in an abbreviated code.
1963		N. Dunn Up the Junction 2: What’s it like havin’ a ton of money?
1975		K. Willey Ghosts of the Big Country 54: Well, you might not look much like bloody footballers, but you’ve certainly got a ton of guts!
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 36: You’ll certainly require a ton of the folding stuff.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 2: The Young Woman pours a ton of cream and sugar into her coffee.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 7: She says it’s a ton of fun and the money’s pretty good, too.
2019		C.D. Rosales Word Is Bone [ebook] ‘The vig was at a thousand bones a match. I got three more dogs got me a vig of three fifty, and four more after that, that brought in fifty more.’ ‘How much was that total?’ ‘A fucking ton’.
2022		I. Fitzgerald Dirtbag, Massachusetts 177: [He] made a ton of money after starting his own porn site.

2. £100.

1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 22 Feb. 3/3: There was exactly three tons of money behind the Melbourne dog, and nearly as much within a quarter of a ton behind his Sydney jags.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 167: He gave me a ton (£100) for the groins.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 20: We [...] grafted four ton apiece from the old dear.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 91: You bung me two tons, right?
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 37: ‘I’ll sink a couple of ton into the deal’.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 130: Here love – here’s a ton / go get it fixed / a hundred quid to kick it out.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 223: ‘He insisted on the whole ton’.
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 102: I know a fella drinks up my way might be interested, but he’d need five ton. To hurt him like.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 52: Still n all tho, it’s a ton for a day’s work.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 31: I asked him for a five-ton deal [i.e. of heroin].

3. 100 miles per hour; usu. as do a ton v., to drive at that speed.

1965		E. Bond Saved Scene iii: This lorry was doin’ a ton in a built-up street.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 1 Aug. 1: Doing a ton along the S-bends through the iron bridges. A lot of bikers were killed.
2001		J. King White Trash 160: It wasn’t like she hadn’t done a ton before.

4. any unit of 100, e.g. 100 years, 100 runs (in cricket).

1975		D. Nobbs Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976) 67: Pity the tall girl [...] didn’t get her ton.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 149: He goes ton-forty and has three darts at double 16?
1989		M. Walker How to Kiss a Crocodile 130: The ton took the maestro of the willow just 64 balls and 12 fours and four huge sixes.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 350: He was forty-nine in 1990 – coming up to the half-ton.

5. (N.Z. prison) a 100mg tablet of morphne sulphate.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 190/2: ton n. a 100mg morphine sulphate tablet.