Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to be severely chastised or punished.

1977		S. Galvin Operation Sadie 166: A full kit inspection was underway with the NCOs thumping the sailors before kicking their kit into a huge untidy pile [...] The lads were getting murder .
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 41: If Rafiq’s mum got hurt and I stood by I was going to get murders off my mum.

(US) a selection panel; a panel that grills a candidate to prepare them for an interview or debate.

2022

K. Noem Not My First Rodeo 138: My team was extremely nervous about the event and put me through hours of preparation and ‘murder boards’ to prepare me to debate Stephanie [Herseth Sandlin].

(N.Z. juv.) a school dental clinic.

1964		Bullock in Reid Book N.Z. 240: ‘Missed writing to-day. Had to go to the Murder House instead.’ ‘The Murder House?’ My hand falters to my throat. ‘You mean the Headmaster’s Study?’ ‘No, the Dental Clinic. See?’ [DNZE].
1980		L. Leland Kiwi-Yankee Dict. 68: murder house: At most large schools, and for each collection of small ones, there is a small prefabricated building set slightly apart... The children..consider a visit to the school dental clinic an unpleasant necessity, at best. Hence the name.
1991		H. Keith Lovely Day Tomorrow 24: She has an appointment that day at the school’s ‘Murder House’ – the dental clinic, with its treadle drill ably wielded by the dental nurse [DNZE].
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

1. to make threats that one couldn’t or wouldn’t ever back up with action; thus as n.

1970		B. Seale Seize the Time 158: Some dudes were high, and wanted to be murder-mouthing – ‘Yeah, I’m going to get a gun.’.
1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 12: Some people do get through with murder-mouth and nothing behind it.
1990		G.L. Jackson Blood in My Eye xii: Many inmates ‘murder mouth’ and ‘sell wolf tickets’; they do a lot of heavy talking, but when it comes down to the point of action, they disappear.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1982		T.C. Bambara Sea Birds Are Still Alive 172: If you ain’t some bronze Barbie doll type or the big fro murder-mouth militant sister, you Aunt Jemima.
1997		J. Mardis Kente Cloth 45: Before I went to the joint I would have been all over that nigga talking that murder mouth shit.

see separate entries.

(orig. US) a charge of murder.

1933		J. Gray ‘The Nudist Gym Death Riddle’ in Vice Squad Detective 🌐 While you’re about it, Swannie, you might as well make the murder rap stick.
1943		P. Cheyney You Can Always Duck (1959) 75: You can’t hang any murder rap on me.
1948		H. McCoy Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in Four Novels (1983) 123: There’s a murder rap staring us in the face.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 109: That means a murder rap for one of you.
1978		J. Webb Fields of Fire (1980) 1: Don’t need no murder rap from a junkie dead inside a toilet.

see separate entry.

see blue murder n.

to flout all proprieties with absolute success, to achieve the otherwise unacceptable; occas. with blue.

1914		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 58: He’s been getting away with murder he has — it’s a wonder they don’t tumble to that fathead.
1920		H.C. Witwer Kid Scanlon 168: If he had discovered anything, he could actually do even half way decent, he would have got away with murder.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 117: They let that stable get away with murder.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 66: Johnny could get away with murder if he wanted to.
1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 99: No wonder they thought they could get away with murder.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene xi: When someone carries on like ’er, they ’ave t’ pay for it. People can’t get away with murder.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 11: You’d think I was gettin’ away with murder the way he carried on.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 34: A man can get away with blue murder.
1999		Guardian Weekend 11 Sept. 24: They have five years of being [...] allowed to get away with murder, turning up late.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 182: Big corporations could get away with murder.

(US) to raise an outcry, to make a fuss.

1873		Seth W. Payne Behind the Bars 161: The childers hollered murther and set up a big howl.
1884		‘Experiences of a Cunt Philosopher’ in Randiana 51: Oh Johnny, dear Johnny, you’ll make me cry murther, / Oh, Johnny, pray cease this [i.e. intercourse], you’ll make me scream murther.
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 8 Jan. 5/3: She stayed in her room yelling every kind of murder.
1925		Odum & Johnson Negro and His Songs (1964) 155: An’ the girls all holler murder.
1931		D. Runyon ‘The Snatching of Bookie Bob’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 120: Their mammas are sure to go running around hollering bloody murder.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 56: He yelled bloody murder.
1961		F. O’Connor An Only Child (1970) 23: I hid under the kitchen table, yelling bloody murder.

see death on adj. (2)

see scream blue murder under blue murder n.

see separate entry.