Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a wide belt, a corset.

1826		W.N. Glascock Naval Sketchbk I 17: Perceiving the officer of marines loosening his sash [...] he gruffly exclaimed, ‘d—n your belly-band soldier! bear a-hand and bale out the soup’.
[1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 345: Bellybands. Cholera belts issued to British troops].
1922		Joyce Ulysses 231: She was well primed with a good load of Delahunt’s port under her bellyband.

(drugs) barbiturates.

2002

‘Drug Sl. Vault’ on Erowid.org 🌐 Blue bands Barbiturates.

(US prison) a trusty, i.e. a prisoner given special privileges.

1950		P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 177: red collar. The forerunner of the redband. [...] Today the redband is a common sight in most prisons.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 26: That meant I was a Red Band, a trusty who could move freely about the prison without having to be escorted by a screw.
1986		J. Campbell Gate Fever 65: The use of prisoners as ‘trusties’ or ‘red bands’ is as old as prisons themselves.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 146: Some redbands are sweet, like governor’s orderly tell you anything.
2000		Guardian G2 15 June 7: He had made sufficient progress to have secured a job as a ‘red band’ (trusty) working on duties unsupervised.

(Aus./US) a woman who associates herself with rock or jazz bands, offering her body for a share in their celebrity.

1970

New Yorker 5 Dec. 167: ‘Groupies’ reveals a way of life that has shock and curiosity value for the audience. The subject of baby bandmolls is such a good one.

a woman who associates herself with musicians, usu. offering sex in return for proxy celebrity.

1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 93: Hungry young hustlers hustle dissatisfied old cats and ancient glass-eyed satyrs make passes at bandrats.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 175: Get off my back, you vitch you! You band rat!

(Ulster) drunk.

1997

Share Slanguage.

(orig. US) to surpass comprehensively; esp. in excl. that beats the band! that’s beyond rival/compare!

1897		Washington Bee (DC) 18 Dec. 8/1: These christians (in name) raised sufficient ‘cain’ to beat the band.
1898		Rock Is. Argus (IL) 6 Aug. 5/1: [advert] Well! If That Doesn’t Beat the band!
1904		Palestine Dly Herald (TX) 30 July 1/5: [He] has fitted up a diminutive toy engine [...] fired up the engine by electricty, and has her running to beat the band.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 22 June 3/6: Blowing [a] tin whistle to beat the band.
1905		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy Abroad 221: Well, sir, I have been in lots of tight places before, but this beats the band.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Sept. 13/1: ‘Well, sparemedays, it beatstha band / ’Ow these things workeround! / But after wotcher say,’ sizee, / ‘I’ll standja ina pound.’.
1920		E. Blair in College Days (Eton) 4 1 Apr. in Complete Works X (1998) 64: What yours truly went through here four years gone just beats the whole jazz-band.
1921		Wash. Herald (DC) 23 Oct. 38/6: I found her smokling cigarettes to beat the band.
1927		C. Woofter ‘Dialect Words and Phrases from West-Central West Virginia’ in AS II:8 348: beat the band (verb phrase), (1) an expression of surprise.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 282: ‘This beats t’band, this does.’ And he chuckles.
1938		S. Beckett Murphy (1963) 121: ‘Well, that beats the band,’ said Ticklepenny.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 8: ‘Bury him on his face?’ I says, incredulous-like. ‘You’re joking!’ ‘Those are the instructions, Joe,’ Mr. Wood says. ‘It beats the band,’ I says. ‘What the idea?’.
1962		V.C. Hall Dreamtime Justice 92: Well! this beat the band.
1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

(US) pork and beans; thus brass band without a leader, beans without the pork.

1887		‘Dict. of Diningroom Sl.’ in Brooklyn Daily Eagle 3 July 13: ‘Brass band, without a leader,’ is a plate of beans without pork.
1897		L.A. Times 9 Apr. 5: ‘Brass band with leader’—pork and beans.

a band that is mocked for being more interested in style than music.

1999

Guardian Rev. 15 Oct. 11: Far from being a ‘haircut band’ (the worst possible insult), the Charlatans and their twirly Hammond organ kick US-friendly ass.

a phr. describing the point at which the problems really began, when things became serious.

1895		Dundee Eve. Teleg. 12 July 2/4: Maud— That’s the brute that proposed to me [...] He ought to have known beforehand that I should refuse him. Papa— Perhaps he did (Then the band played).
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 90: Ho, won’t ther band play when His Whiskers come ’ome t’ mother, ’n’ hears ther full perticklers.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 243/2: Then the band played (Parliamentary). Climax, finality. Derived from the use of brass bands on the nomination day, which immediately sounded when the opponent of their employer attempted to address the people.
1923		Dundee Courier 12 Sept. 7/3: Then, my dear, the band played, I can assure you.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 93: Sweating like that on a night like this here, you’ll catch your death of double ammonia. Then the band won’t half play. [Ibid.] 129: If you hadn’t let the coppers follow you, [...] we’d be all right. As it is, they’re playing the bloody band all round the house.

(orig. US campus) to the utmost, very much.

1894		Star-Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 15 May 4/3: Yale College Slang [...] Williams was diked out to beat the band and was bound for a skirt party somewhere.
1895		J.L. Williams Princeton Stories 175: Why I just sit down and pole to beat the band.
1899		Ade Fables in Sl. (1902) 37: She made up her mind to be Benevolent to beat the Band.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 104: Some folks says your life is grand, / That you make dough to beat the band.
1910		Wodehouse Gentleman of Leisure Ch. xiii: Look at me. Gittin’ busy all de year round, woikin’ to beat de band—.
1917		A.S.G. Lee letter in No Parachute (1968) 25 May 25: Dimmock strumming at the piano and everyone gathering round him, bellowing to beat the band.
1927		‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana I 60: The dame I had last night hollored to beat the band.
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 1026: Margo [...] acted the jealous bitch and started making over Cassidy to beat the cars.
1940		J. MacLaren-Ross ‘A Bit of a Smash in Madras’ in Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 291: Bags of natives sprawling about the corridors, all chattering to beat the band.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 23: I was shikkered to beat the band.
1968		G. Cuomo Among Thieves 286: Everybody hooting and hollering to beat the band, having a hell of a time giving old Manson the bird.
1971		T.C. Bambara ‘Raymond’s Run’ in Gorilla, My Love (1972) 32: I’m smiling to beat the band.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 6: It was raining to beat the band.
1995		R. Campbell Wizard of La-La Land (1999) 98: Nixon, they say, went off laughing fit to beat the band.