packet, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

packet n.

[SE packet, a bundle of letters; thus lit. a ‘packet of lies’]

1. a false report; thus sell one a packet v., to hoax, to deceive, to lie.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.

2. (orig. milit.) a bullet or missile; see cop a packet

3. (also pack, package) a large sum of money; esp. in make/win a packet v.

1915		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Old, But New’ Sporting Times 6 Mar. 1/2: ‘You’ve some banknotes on you, I perceive, and for your good I’ll buy / What you need most, if you’ll hand them o’er to me.’ And her wisdom so impressed him that he passed to her the pack.
1922		M. Arlen Piracy (1932) 157: The ‘dicers’ stayed at home that evening – Tarlyon and Cypress had both won a packet at chemin de fer the night before.
1930		E. Waugh Vile Bodies 189: I’ve got the nice little packet of thirty-five thou. waiting.
1938		G. Greene Brighton Rock (1943) 71: The odds have shortened. There’s been a packet laid on Black Boy this week.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 45: We can drop her in a stake race at Churchill Downs and win a package.
1946		S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 115: You drop a hint about having won a packet.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 314: There was a packet to be made out of liquor for a hell of a long time yet.
1956		‘Raymond Thorp’ Viper 76: Snow was worth a packet.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 73: Once in a while he makes a package, but mostly he drops it.
1960		(con. c.1928) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 161: This ’ere trunk’s worth a packet!
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 165: ‘I won the pools.’ [...] ‘I hope it was a bundle.’ ‘A packet – well, enough anyway.’.
1989		R. Dahl Rhyme Stew (1990) 35: I want ski-trousers and a jacket! / I don’t care if it costs a packet!
1990		R.G. Barratt ‘McCullough to Cut the Deadwood’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] [S]he writes books normal people can understand and enjoy, and makes a packet while she’s at it.
1999		Observer Cash 3 Oct. 2: Help your bundle of joy to make a packet.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 157: We had put a packet on Turfcutter to win, and the bloody thing came in third.

4. trouble.

1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 195: Nothing ain’t gone right, not since I come out of stir. Got another packet I did. Fourteen days in Pentonville.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 75: Somebody’s at it. Somebody’s catching a packet.

5. (usu. gay) the genitals, male or female.

1959		J. Gielgud letter 5 Aug. in Mangan John Gielgud’s Letters (2004) 235: The S.M. [...] wears skin tight Sun Tans with an enormous packet!
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 131: Box (vagina [...] but more often in the sense of U.S. gay term basket, U.K. packet).
1998		I. Welsh Filth 78: She finds oot [...] who the guys wi the really big packets are and she’ll only fuck them.
1999		J. Poller Reach 106: Nice packet.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 296/1: packet a man’s crotch .
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 168: [A] bulky packet in the gentleman area.

6. constr. with the, everything, the lot.

1996

J. Cameron It Was An Accident 84: Windscreen rear window tyres the packet.

7. (US prison) a long sentence.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 28: Long also Longtimer An inmate with many years to serve. Although a prison sentence of 10 years or more is generally considered to be long, it is more frequently associated with prison sentences of 25 years to life. (Archaic: bundle, chunk, package).

In phrases

cop a packet (v.) (also catch a packet, get..., have..., stop...) [cop v. (3a); Brophy & Partridge, Songs and Slang of the British Soldier (1930), suggest the ‘packet’ of gauze and lint that comprised the First Field Dressing that would be applied to a wound]

1. to be killed or wounded, to get into trouble.

1916		R. Service ‘Bill’s Grave’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 82: Bill copped a packet proper, and took ’is departure West.
1917		W. Muir Observations of Orderly 222: I could see he knew I’d clicked a packet, square dinkum, this trip.
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 347: Packet. Wound. ‘So-and-so has caught a packet.’ [Ibid.] 348: Stopped one. Received a wound.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 272: Stop A Packet, To: To be hit by a bullet: wounded: killed.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 31: ‘Thought you was a Buddoo, Sergeant. You nearly caught a packet’ [Ibid.] 71: [N]ot that his coppin’ that packet was through me, exact.
1930		(con. 1914–18) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier.
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 1160/1: stop a packet [...] from 1915.
1940		Sikeston Herald (MO) 26 Dec. 7/7: Packet (buy a) – To be badly bombed.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 35: It looked as if the old bird was going to cop a packet.
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: Shot [...] he got a packet.
1946		G. Gibson Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 67: His pilot [...] flew right over the battleship and got a packet for his pains.
1950		L.O’Flaherty Insurrection 197: ‘Hey! Where do you think you’re going?’ cried a soldier as she entered the alley-way. ‘You might get a packet in the napper down there.’.
1955		H. Ainley In Order to Die 111: [O]ne man’s glory inevitably meant somebody else stopping a packet.
1960		G.W. Target Teachers (1962) 91: The Old Man watched them in ... and then Dusty’s lot, copped just as big a packet by the look of it.
1971		(con. WWII) B. Aldiss Soldier Erect 262: ‘Old Geordie got a packet.’ [...] ‘Right in the fucking guts.’.

2. to suffer a dose of venereal disease.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 846.2: mid-C20.

3. to gain a great deal, poss. more than one bargained for; this can either be good (more money than expected) or bad (a longer prison sentence than feared).

1950

P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 52: copped a packet. Given a sentence of preventive detention.

cost a packet (v.)

to cost a great deal; thus joc. Costa Packet, any tourist resort in Spain popular with British working classes.

1930		W.S. Maugham Bread-Winner in Plays (1932) 239: Charles. It cost me a packet Alfred. And you’re not the only one.
1957		‘Nino Culotta’ They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 177: Cost y’a packet.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 228: It’ll cost him a packet to get an old place like this done up.
1976		C. Dexter Last Seen Wearing in Second Morse Omnibus (1994) 361: The whole thing must have cost the Local Authority a real packet.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 118: Three weeks on the Costa Packet.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 148: These beauts’d’ve cost a packet.

drop a packet (v.)

to give birth.

1938

L. Ortzen Down Donkey Row 176: Then the missus’s time comes on. She’s ready ter drop a packet any minnit nah.

prize packet (n.)

see prize package under package n.

In exclamations

packets!

a general expression of disbelief.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.