Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a $100 bill.

1920

R.J. Brown ‘Thirty Days on the Island’ in Argosy 3 Jan. 🌐 ‘If I give you a hundred dollars, will you agree to—’ I make a grab for the gold-back, but he pulls it away.

see separate entries.

a gold coin.

1797

M. Robinson Walsingham II 176: D--n me if I’m sensible of anything [...] so touch the gold drops – divide them among you.

1. one who always has money in his pocket or purse, thus a target of thieves.

1603		Dekker Wonderfull Yeare 47: Mary no Diues was within to send him a crum, (for all your Gold-finches were fled to the woods).
1611		Davies of Hereford Scourge of Folly 25: Of Cornutus and his costly wife [...] But who a Gold-finch faine would make his wife, Make her (perhaps) a wag-tail all her life.
1654		Witts Recreations Epigram No. 225: [as cit. 1611] On fine apparrell. Some that their wives may neat and cleanly go, Doe all their substance upon them bestow: But who a Gold-finch, fain would make his wife, Makes her perhaps a Wag-tail all her life .
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Goldfinch c. he that has alwaies a Purse or Cod of Gold in his Fob.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1792		C. Dibdin ‘All for the Chink’ Buck’s Delight 28: Who’d refuse a lad of my inches [...] But wag-tails lur’d are by gold-finches.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 150: The Goldfinches of the day trying to excel each other in point of coachmanship.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 37: Was the swell a goldfinch?

2. a golden guinea or sovereign.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1828		‘A Flat Enlightened’ Life in the West I 192: Out just twelve ‘gold-finches’ each upon a good adventure.
1830		B.M. Carew Gypsey of the Glen II i: I know you Scotchmen like the goldfinches. Ah, her father is pretty warm, I can tell you.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 96: Here’s a handful of goldfinches ready to fly!
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 32: Gold Finches, sovereigns.
1901		Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: A sovereign is [...] a goldfinch, a dragoon, a king s picture, a poona, or a thick ’un.
1905		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 4 Feb. 5/6: A sovereign has been rechristened a ‘glistener,’ a ‘goldfinch,’ a ‘mousetrap,’ a ‘new hat’ [...] a ‘remedy,’ a ‘stranger’’.

see separate entries.

(US gay) a young male light-skinned black prostitute.

c.1930

(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 236: There was a Miss Carol, who could find boys for the trade. Young nigrah boys of light colour were known as goldskins and were often spoiled by white johns.

(US) a derog. term for a Puerto Rican.

1957

Laurents & Sondheim West Side Story I vi: Say, where’s the rumble gonna be? [...] I know regular Americans don’t rub with the gold-teeth otherwise. The river? The park?

see separate entry.

bisexual.

1989

J. Morton Lowspeak 66: Gold and silver – bisexual.

body lice.

1873		Sl. Dict.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(US) a city detective.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL.

an itinerant jeweller, a buyer of gold and silver.

1605		Chapman & Jonson Eastward Ho! V i: He that will do more for his daughter that has married a scurvy gold-end man.
1610		Jonson Alchemist II iv: I know him not. He looks like a gold-end-man.

prime, utter, consummate.

1948		Arizona Republican 2 Mar. 6/2: He is apparently a typical gold-plated lounge-lizard over whelmed with a sense of his own superiority [DA].
1970		J. Bouton Ball Four 75: I think coach Eddie O’Brien is going to prove a gold-plated pain in the ass.
2016		Guardian G2 14 Oct. 11/1: One critic described it [i.e. a musical] as ‘a real gold-plated stinker’.

see brass guts under brass adj.¹

(US gay) a lesbian who has never had sex with a man or a bisexual woman and never will.

1998

R. Scott Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 gold-star lesbian — a lesbian who never has had and never intends to have sex with a man. Sometimes they also get points for never sleeping with bisexuals. Entirely too many of them get terribly self-righteous about it, and look down on bisexuals and lesbians who have had sex with men.