Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of a man, to have sexual intercourse, esp. to deflower.

1902

Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Nov. n.p.: If grocers pawed their lady customers it would be a poor grocer fraud who wouldn’t get there twice as soon as the average parson fraud.

2. (US campus) to achieve an aim.

1886		Times (Clay Center, KS) 4 Oct. 1/5: Though not now young himself shall he be laid on the shelf, while the dude in tight breeches ‘gets there’.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 19: get there To succeed; to accomplish one’s purpose.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Jun. 24/2: If [...] Wilkinson, recently captured by the Boers, had been compelled by circumstances to take to the ring for a living, he’d have ‘got there’.
1904		Wash. Post 26 July 5/6: In the perpetual rush to ‘get there’, we are in very great danger of losing our equilibrium.
1969		B. Jackson Thief’s Primer 55: can’t get there: cannot do something.
1970		J. Bouton Ball Four 159: My taste in clothing is, I’m afraid, conservative. Tonight, though, I did show up in a rather mod outfit and John Kennedy said, ‘Hey, look at Bouton. He’s getting there’.
2022		A. Kirzman quoting D. Trump in Wash. Post 7 Oct. in Giuliani 273: ‘I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there’.

3. to achieve orgasm.

1998

I. Welsh Filth 209: That horrendous shriek fills the air to signal that she’s getting there.

4. to become intoxicated by drink or drugs.

1997

Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 364: ‘They [i.e. bags of heroin] a bomb?’ ‘They sure enough get you there.’.