bent, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bent adj.

[all fig. uses of SE + pun on broke adj.¹]

1. intoxicated by liquor or drugs.

1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 176: He was seldom downright drunk; but was often [...] confoundedly bent.
1927		‘Sl. Expressions for Drunk’ in New Republic in AS XVI:1 (1941) 9 Mar. 70: [...] bent.
1934		Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 272: Bent – intoxicated.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 43: bent [...] high or intoxicated from a hallucinogen or narcotic.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 339: bent: High on drugs, usually hallucinogens, sometimes narcotics.
1982		W. Safire What’s The Good Word? 79: Bent [...] can also mean drunk.
1997–2000		College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Bent (adj.) High or intoxicated.
2002		T. Dorsey Triggerfish Twist (2002) 87: ‘How do you feel?’ asked Bernie. Coleman looked slowly around the room. ‘High, stoned, hammered, bent, [...]’.
2014		Young Jeezy ‘Holy Ghost’ 🎵 Sippin’ good in the back, I’m like fuck it, I’m bent.

2. impoverished, penniless.

1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 5 Oct. 3/7: ‘What a lucky beggar Adam was [...] with no dressmaker’s bill to pay,’ said a badly bent punter to his spouse.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

3. criminal; corrupt; thus on the bend under bend n.¹; thus bent copper, bent screw, corrupt police officer, prison-warder.

1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 17: bent [...] crooked; larcenous. Example: His kisser shows that he’s bent.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 26: Bent.—Crooked ; criminal ; outside the law. Directly the opposite of ‘straight,’ and applied to individuals, enterprises or goods.
1943		J. Phelan Letters from the Big House 144: ’E says as ’is china bust a two-handful kite, Scotch jug, flutes the bogeys cause the jumper ses the moniker’s bent. Slung ’em the madam, an’ copped.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 41: Much thought is given to the causes of crime: i.e. why blokes go bent. [Ibid.] 203: Members of the bent fraternity are very conventional [...] in their attitude to some things.
1960		F. Norman in Education 22 Jan. in Norman’s London (1969) 92: It might even prevent young people from going ‘bent’ themselves.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 9: The cat was away at college for an education. If he is still bent when he leaves, he will be back for straightening.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 107: The bent policeman who tips off the crook.
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 22: The city council is bent, the police force is bent, the government’s bent, the opposition is bent and you still can’t get a drink before seven on a Sunday evening.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 186: bent: corrupt, dishonest.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 127: A succession of clapped-out aristos and bent MPs.
1989		in G. Tremlett Little Legs 165: There are bent screws in every nick.
1994		G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] Bent panelbeaters and car thieves.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 200: Bent cops go back on their deals.
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] What about this Cannon Ridge business? [...] Reckon it’s bent?
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 43: Dr. Roos, a bent plastic surgeon he’d busted for selling ketamine two years ago. It turned out Special K was the least of it.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] Half the [drug] squad turned out bent.
2008		(ref. to 1971) F. Dennis ‘Old Bailey’ Homeless in my Heart 180: Where coppers as bent as a hinge / March in and bellow their trade.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 10: I got people to check with bent cozzers back home to see if the police were actively looking for me.
2013		J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 156: I just took his car. Bent fuck like that, he’s not going to go to the authorities.
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] [H]is dubious reputation as a bent cop.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 197: Gooch was a bent copper.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 261: ‘No shakedown attempts by any bent cops who might know the story’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 324: ‘[H]e was the most reliably bent bluebottle you could hope to meet. Not an honest bone in his body’.

4. spoiled, ruined.

1930

(con. 1914–1918) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier 210: Bent, spoiled, ruined, e.g. ‘a good man bent’ or even ‘good tea bent’.

5. illegal, stolen.

1923		Gippsland Times(Vic.) 29 Jan. 3/2: The stolen goods are known as ‘bent stuff’ or ‘swag’.
1930		E.H. Lavine Third Degree (1931) 39: A member of the Auto Squad arrested a city fireman [...] for having sold a stolen or bent car.
1938		J.E. Hoover Persons in Hiding 246: You suspect me of being in a stolen car? Look it over, take the numbers. You’ll never find me in a bent job.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1955		B. Hill Boss of Britain’s Underworld 16: My mother was a buyer of bent gear.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 150: Well have you got any bent geer in the back?
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 61: The two rooms held nothing bent.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 118: I gave up flogging bent gear in Oxford Street after that.
1997		(con. 1960s) A. Frewin London Blues 81: I know dockers are pretty highly paid but I suspect our Reg also does a bit of dealing in bent goods.

6. considered as sexually eccentric, esp. homosexual; as half-bent, bisexual.

1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 54: Not bent at all, though I had hopes that perhaps he dabbled.
1960		in G. Westwood A Minority 99: I think I’ll always be bent, but perhaps half-bent. All my mates are normal. I like sex with queers. [Ibid.] 208: Bent adj. [...] half-bent meaning bisexual.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 7: Nobody could be more sweet and have such a bent mind.
1970		L. Sanders Anderson Tapes 97: [I] found out he was bent, sex-wise [...] Whips.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 16: The straight and narrow, so beloved of our founding fathers and all fathers thereafter, is now obviously and irrevocably bent.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 12: It doesn’t make you bent as a hairpin / to indulge sometimes in a little sin.
1989		H. Harrison Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 176: Are you kinky or bent, Bill?
1992		D. Jarman letter 12 Mar. Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 94: Pat had a soft spot for bent aristocracy.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] Look, I’ve never been with a man in me life. Well, then, how do you know you’re not bent? How can you know unless you try it?
2004		J. McCourt ‘Vilja de Tanquay Exults’ in Queer Street 293: Mum had too, / A thing for yanks [...] / So did my poor bent dad and a big thing too.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 138: [of women] It might give some of the bent bitches a thrill.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 231: I’m looking to bait some bent motherfuckers.

7. (orig. US) eccentric, acting oddly, behaving in a strange manner.

1964		Current Sl. (1967) I:4 3/2: Bent, adj. Uninhibited, mad, or insane.
1979		Lette & Carey Puberty Blues 118: Yews chicks are bent [...] fuckin’ bent.
1987		C. Hiaasen Double Whammy (1990) 158: [He] had skinned him like a mackerel and tried to sell the fillets [...] It was one of those cases so bent as to be threatened by the sheer weight of law-enforcement bureacracy.
1989		A. Vachss Hard Candy (1990) 92: You’re a fucking nutcase yourself, Burke [...] Yeah, you’re bent.
1991		R.G. Barratt ‘What Are You Laughing At?’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] But being a bit bent, I like bent humour, and for bent humour it’s hard to go past cartoonist Gary Larson,.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 206: ‘Are we nuts?’ ‘Yeah, baby, fuckin’ bent.’.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 123: A bent, beautiful, edge-of-your-seat genius female.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] The straight world thought I was too bent and the bent world assumed I was too big for my thigh-high boots.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 271: The man was seriously bent, but [...] also high-functioning.

8. (US) angry, excited; usu. in phr. bent out of shape ; also as vtr., to anger, to effect emotionally.

1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 132: Now this happened at a time when I didn’t have one cent. / I beat my way to Frisco and my mind was [?] and bent.
1967		Current Sl. II:2 5: Bent, adj. Angry or extremely displeased.
1976		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: get bent – expression of anger/and or annoyance, either playful or serious.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 9: I hung up on his smile and let out a hiss that steamed the glass. Already he’d bent me out of shape.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 231: Wes kept mostly clear of the scene, popping over only every once in a while to make sure nobody was getting too badly bent out of shape.
2014		D.B. Flowers Bangs 318: Bangs was bent about losing the car and the cocaine—which he said was some of the best shit he’d ever had.

9. in weak form of sense 5, weak, emotional.

2005

P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 145: What I really wished for was that [...] we’d live, like, happily ever after, roysh, but I didn’t say that because it sounded too bent.

In compounds

bent shot (n.)

a homosexual.

2012

D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 314: ‘You a poof?’ [...] ‘I don’t like that word’ [...] ‘Well what word dae ye want us tae use? Bender? Bent shot?’.

bent wrist (n.)

see limp wrist n. (2)

In phrases

bent as a butcher’s hook (adj.) (also bent as a bootlace)

extremely corrupt, highly criminal.

1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 45: You was born bent as a bootlace, boy!
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 173: Bent as a butcher’s hook Stolen or dishonest.

bent as a dog’s hind leg (adj.)

highly corrupt.

1937

‘Red Collar Man’ ‘Chokey’ 196: I tell you he’s as bent as a dog’s hind leg.

bent as a nine-bob note (adj.)

1. (also bent as a forty-eight pence piece) of a person, dishonest or of an object, stolen.

1972		I. Scarlet Prostitutes 59: ‘Bent as a nine-bob note, I am’, he admits without any trace of either shame or bravado. ‘Need the money, don’t I?’.
1981		A. Payne ‘You Need Hands’ Minder [TV script] 45: Selling diamonds in some field at dawn, that has to be as bent as a nine bob note, and I don’t wish to be associated.
1993		T. Lambrianou Inside the Firm [ebook] The heavy one [i.e. police officer]was an outandout bruiser who was as bent as a nine bob note, as was publicly proven later.
2001		I. Welsh Glue 54: Eh reckons Pender’s as bent as a forty-eight pence piece.
2013		P. Williams Scum 61: Jesus fuckin’ Christ, he made a mint! Bent as a nine bob note, he was, 'im the boss and all!
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 132: She bears the queers of the future [...] who will in their turn spawn heirs born bent as a nine bob note.

2. homosexual.

2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 176: ‘Crazy Larry was the other way?’ [...] ‘Bent as a nine-bob note.’.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 47: You’d bet your bollocks he was an iron, bent as a nine-bob note.

bent as a two-bob watch (adj.)

1. (Aus.) extremely corrupt.

1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 22: Name another world power where the police aren’t as bent as a two-bob watch.
2012		J. Burdett Last Six Million Seconds 37: Those Red coastguards have always been the lowest of the low. They’re all as bent as a two-bob watch.

2. homosexual.

1987

P. McDowell Dope Opera 148: Knocking Ruth up just before he’d decided he was as bent as a two bob watch.

bent out of shape (adj.)

1. intoxicated by a drug, esp. cannabis or LSD, or extremely drunk.

1966		Current Sl. I:3 1/1: Bent out of shape adj. Extremely intoxicated.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).

2. very angry.

1969		Current Sl. III:4 4: Bent out of shape, adj. Angry; dissatisfied.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 175: I feel like really bent outta shape about somethin’.
1980		A. Maupin More Tales of the City (1984) 215: Was she bent out of shape?
1993		K. Scott Monster (1994) 46: She had been totally bent out of shape by the fact that I had gotten a civilian pregnant.
2000		M. Collins Keepers of Truth 119: I’d never seen a guy so bent out of shape like that over nothing.
2012		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. 2011.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 248: [L]ater, when Roy had stolen from us, Emily was real bent out of shape about it.

3. excited, emotionally stressed, concerned.

1973		L. Shecter On the Pad 151: [W]hen a lot of guys get hung in heavy, get bent out of shape, they blow the whistle on a joint.
1998		K. Anderson Night Dogs 62: ‘Some of ’em must have gotten pretty bent out of shape over there’ [i.e. Vietnam].
2011		26 Mar. NY Times 🌐 ‘This is not something that the general public needs to get bent out of shape about,’ said Jessica Stone Levy, a Denver-based trademark lawyer.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 113: ‘I just can’t see Derek getting all bent out of shape because a biker’s old lady got dumped’.

go bent (v.) (UK Und./prison)

1. to become corrupt.

1959		F. Norman Fings II i: On top of all this bovva, me accountant goes right bent.
1970		P. Laurie Scotland Yard 254: And then they could go bent on us - I hope most policemen would laugh at £500, but they might not.

2. to turn to criminality.

1956

‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 41: Much thought is given to the causes of crime: i.e. why blokes go bent.

3. to let down, to desert.

1960		F/ Norman Stand on Me 163: Bert began to get the needle about having taught me all the tricks of the trade, and tried to persuade me that it was a matter of honour that I didn't go bent on him.
1969		F. Norman Norman’s London 132: I sat on the bed wondering how long I was going to get this time, and [...] if they would go bent on me and oppose bail.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 155: S’long as yuh ain’t finkin of going bent on me, mate.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 23: to go bent – to inform or turn Queen’s Evidence. As in ‘Tom’s gone bent on us’.

4. of one’s girlfriend, to take up with someone else.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 71/1: since ca.1920.

5. (Aus.) to go wrong, to fail.

1994

Bulletin (Sydney) 5927-5935 84/2: Mulberry Street nick has had a string of drug raids go bent on it.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

have someone bent (v.)

(US teen) to misinterpret, to ‘read’ incorrectly.

2002

Teen Lingo: The Source for Youth Ministry 🌐 bent a skewed impression of reality. ‘You got me bent, I ain’t like that.’.

take the bent stick (v.)

of a woman who may no longer be easily marriageable, to abandon one’s hopes of a perfect partner, substituting instead an elderly but constant admirer.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1199: [...] earlier C.20.

In exclamations

get bent!

(US campus) a general excl. of dismissal or contempt.

1968–70		Current Sl. III–V (Cumulation Issue).
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 100: Don’t give me any grief. You want a knuckle sandwich. Get Bent.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 242: ‘I thought you found somebody.’ ‘Get bent.’.
1983		S. King Christine 133: ‘Get bent,’ he said, and hung up.
1997–2002		Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 get bent get fucked Said in a derogatory way. Why don’t you go get bent!
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 299: Donna flipped her-him the finger. Get bent and butt out, Butch!