Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) a feeling of depression.

1979

Maledicta III:2 167: Black Boogaloo n 1: A rhythm 2: Dance 3: Feeling of blackness.

1. the first day back at school after the holidays.

1749		Fielding Tom Jones (1959) 273: She now hated my sight, and made home so disagreeable to me, that what is called by schoolboys black Monday, was to me the whitest in the whole year.
1766		J. Caldwell Debates Relative to the Affairs of Ireland 166: He did not know any Reason why Monday should be a Holiday, except that some Gentlemen might, perhaps, think themselves still at School, and so imagine it to be black Monday.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1853		Household Words 18 293/2: The eve of Black Monday used to be kept on Saturday, when the school box was packed. We then used to get out our books with solemn faces.
1859		Wells Jrnl 5 Nov. 6/4: Tempus fugit, alas! [...] Black Monday has come, my vacation is ended.
1882		‘F. Anstey’ Vice Versa (1931) 9: [Ch. ‘Black Monday’] There comes a time when the days are grudgingly counted to a blacker Monday than ever makes a school-boy’s heart quake within him.

2. the day on which a death sentence is carried out.

1728		A. Boyer Royal Dict. II n.p.: Black Monday, Jour de punition, jour d'execution.
1822		J. Strype Ecclesiastical Memorials 143: Thus this black Monday began with the execution of Punishment this most noble and virtuous lady and her husband.
1841		Punch I 131/2: They need not wait for the Recorder's black cap and a black Monday morning — the Sadler's Wells people hang every night with great success.
1873		Sl. Dict. Black Monday [...] a low term for the Monday on which an execution took place.

(US) in trouble (with).

2000

W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 654: I don’t wanna be in black with the Queen.

1. blackberries.

1982		(con. 1930s–50s) E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 136: He wanted me to take him out to Dalkey Hill to pick ‘blackers’.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 145: It did not take us long to fill our cans [...] and being full up with ‘blackers’ – one for me, one for the can – we decided to explore the house.
1997		Share Slanguage.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Blackers (n): blackberries.

2. champagne and Guinness, mixed.

1942		E. Waugh Put Out More Flags n.p.: He opened bottles and begun mixing stout and champagne in a deep jug. ‘Blackers?’ They had always drunk this our and invigorating draught.
1965		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Confessions 128: We gave him blackers — which is a mixture of champagne and Guinness, commonly know as black velvet.

1. (also blackee, blackey, blacky) a black person; usu. African but also Indian, Aboriginal.

1732		Delightful Adventures of Honest John Cole 31: [written by a Collanantee Negro] If you dis pafh do walkee / Tan here, and tankee, tankee, / About dis Whitee Blackee / Jackee Cole. / Dis Whitee, goodee Goodee, / So lof de Blackee body.
1759		J. Townley High Life Below Stairs I iii: [Dramatis Personae. kingston, a Black] lov.: What Blackey, Blackey. (Pulls him by the Nose.) kingst.: Oh! oh!—What now! Curse you! Oh!—Cot tam you.
1781		J. O’Keeffe Dead Alive (1783) 6: Enter a Black crying.Coachman What, and Blacky goes too?
1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 29 Sept.-6 Oct. n.p.: ‘Tis of a Young Blacky lamenting her swain.
1794		Sporting Mag. Feb. III 289/1: The wife of a gentleman at Sheerness [...] eloped with a black servant. They were pursued to the Nag’s Head in the Borough [...] where Blackey fired a pistol at his pursuers.
1801		diary 21 May in M. Nugent Journal of Voyage and Residence in Jamaica I 4: I should have greatly preferred remaining, instead of playing the Governor’s lady to the blackies.
1810		Tom Hazel ‘Multum in Parvo’ in Egan Boxiana I 480: Fair play to the parties was shewn, you’ll admit, / Though Blackee was strong, with Crib could not hit.
1814		Morn. Post (London) 18 Nov. 3/5: I will make him know that Blackey is the Don, barring one — tom crib, the Champion of England.
1816		M. Lewis 20 Jan. in Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834) 121: Poor Blacky Peter what him do?
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 21: A blackie, with a pair of wooden legs, filled the office [of chairman].
1823		Public Ledger 28 Oct. 4/2: Blackee won’t come back; he is gone to prison.
1827		P. Cunningham New South Wales II 21: The instant blacky perceives whity beating a retreat, he vociferates after him.
1827		Hamel, Obeah Man II 285: ‘Hearkye, blackee!’ shouted the captain.
1832		J.K. Paulding Westward Ho! I 23: The blackeys loved Massa Leetlejohn.
1834		‘Black Pudding’ in Randy Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 203: She quickly had her belly full, / Of blackey’s nice black pudding.
1836		Westmorland Gaz. 2 Jan. 1/4: Now then, blackee, what do you say?
1837		C. Dance Bengal Tiger 7: [ref. to Indians] Here’s your uncle is one – his two Blackies are three – (and they eat rice enough in a day).
1838		C. Gilman Recollections of a Southern Matron 107: A little regiment of blackies came marching towards me.
1841		W.J. Neale Paul Periwinkle 476: I say, blackee, what do you mean by that rigmarole of yours, about niggers’ heads?
1843		Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin I 197: ‘After a good many poor devils have been carried off, blacky’s apathy is a little disturbed’.
1849		J.P. Townsend Rambles in New South Wales 24: He pitched headlong into the stream, upsetting with the surge both blackey and his canoe.
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 2 Nov. n.p.: ‘Now, don’t let a drop of it up, blackee’.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 235: The best we can hope for the poor blackeys is, that [...] they may become voluntary labourers for hire.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend II 32: Do you think it is true about their knocking down blackee in one lot, and his wife in another. [Ibid.] 171: A mosquito flew into one of blackee’s nostrils [...] The aboriginal sneezed.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: ‘Blackey’ must be ape-like, it is his nature too and whether to dig, to rake, to drill, to plant, to sow, Blackey must repose on his hams.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1594: I’ll just have a look at blackie’s cunt again.
1892		‘F. Anstey’ Voces Populi 319: They are cures, those blackies!
1894		Truth (Sydney) 19 Feb. 3/8: Jackey — ‘Dora Dora’ Jackey, / ‘Half-starved broken-hearted’ blacky.
1896		Regiment 18 Apr. 42/1: [of an Indian] Says the blackie, ‘There’s a tiger on top of yonder hill, / He ate my biggest buffalo—plase [sic] Sahib come an’ kill’.
1897		J. London ‘A Thousand Deaths’ Complete Short Stories (1993) I 77: Leaving me to the care of the blackies, he fell to revising the notes he had made on my resuscitation.
1929		T. Gordon Born to Be (1975) 97: What would they say??? Emanuel Taylor Gordon – Mannie – Snowball – Old Zip – Blacky – in New York City – the biggest city in the USA!
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 165: I’ve even had sixpences off Japs, and blackies, and that.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 124: ‘You got that blackie!’ [...] ‘In the last round.’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 25: blacky A negro.
1959		A. Anderson ‘Comrade’ in Lover Man 138: Fix the damn dog up, Blackie.
1960		A. Burgess Right to an Answer (1978) 113: They’ll be in all our houses [...] blackies of all colours.
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 62: The blackies rolling dice in side alleys.
1969		C. Himes Blind Man with a Pistol (1971) 188: ‘What happened?’ Coffin Ed asked. ‘Just that fat blacky showing off all that blood,’ Grave Digger said.
1971		N. Smith Gumshoe (1998) 121: I swear I knew nothing about the black lad. Other than I told the girl he was okay [...] They wanted her, Eddie. Not the blackie.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 30: Kick out the Pakis, blackies, paddys and kikes.
1982		P. Theroux London Embassy 112: ‘You never know with blackies,’ she said.
1990		H. Kureishi Buddha of Suburbia 40: We don’t want you blackies coming to this house.
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 72: Bill, a blacktracker, never got along with his constable. He resented being called Abo, blackie or nigger.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 143: I sent the blackie with him.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1983

S. Gee Never in My Lifetime in Best Radio Play (1984) 71: Nearest I got, I did some street lining for some old Blackie nabob and her car went by.

3. (US gang) a blackjack.

1953

W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 257: He’d never used a gun, only the blackie.

see also separate entries.

(US) a person of mixed race; usu. black, Indian and white.

1966–8

in DARE.

1. (US) a derog. term for a black person.

1952

(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 358: Harry Sticks, a lousy blackbelly.

2. (W.I.) a policeman.

1973

Seneca Rev. 4-5 2: The man doesn't have to show a blackbelly (cop) credentials to buy a drink.

(US) that part of a larger urban area in which the black community lives, the black ghetto; also used in larger scale of a geographical area.

1883		Rock Is. Argus (IL) 29 Dec. 1/2: In the ‘black belt’ of Alabama [...] there are three or four negroes to every white man.
1885		Mineral Resources of the United States 794: Locally [i.e. in Alabama] it is known as the ‘black belt,’ formerly so called because of its prevailing black lands, so productive of corn and cotton. Latterly it is referred to politically as the ‘black belt’ on account of the predominance in numbers of the negro race.
1890		H.M. Field Bright Skies and Dark Shadows 107: As I came up from the Gulf States, I had crossed the Black Belt — the portion of the South most densely populated by the black race.
1899		W.E. DuBois [bk title] The Negro in the Black Belt.
[1900		Booker T. Washington Up From Slavery (1901) 108: I have often been asked to define the term ‘Black Belt.’ [...] The term was first used to designate a part of the country which was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of the country possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken there in large numbers. Later, and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense – that is, to designate the counties where the black people outnumber the white].
1903		W.E.B. Du Bois ‘Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece’ in Souls of Black Folks (1994) 89: The merchant of the Black Belt is a curious institution,—part banker, part landlord, part contractor, and part depot. His store, which used most frequently to stand at cross-roads and became the centre of the weekly village, has now moved to town; and thither the Negro tenant follows him.
1910		Commoner (Lincoln, NE) 15 July 5/2: New York — One negro beaten to death and scores injured in half hundred race riots in ‘black belt’ [...] Pittsburgh, PA — scores of race riots in ‘black belt’.
1918		A.N. Depew Gunner Depew 309: I supposed that negroes were scarce in Switzerland. What a treat it would be for a Swiss to visit the ‘black belt’ down South!
1922		A. Gonzales Black Border 64: Under the trying days of Reconstruction in South Carolina, the white men and boys living in the so-called ‘black belt’, comprising the coastal counties of the State, were constantly seeking to lure the black voters into the fold of Democracy.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 63: You might live your life in many black belts and arrive at the conclusion that there is no such thing as a typical Negro.
1932		C. McKay Gingertown 1: The young joy-lovers of the Belt hurried past.
1935		L. Hughes Mulatto in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: Everything turns on niggers, niggers, niggers! No wonder Yankees call this the Black Belt!
1935		Archie Seale in N.Y. Age 2 Nov. 7/1: [of Harlem] His contribution to the entertainment of the ‘Black Belt’ is something the whites looked forward to.
1938		C. Beaton Cecil Beaton’s N.Y. 167: At the corner of Lennox Avenue and 144th Street, the heart of the ‘Black Belt’.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 577: The dilapidated houses on the margins of the Black Belt.
1952		I, Mobster 75: Up to then policy had always been strictly a dinge operation, something for no place but the black belt.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 24: The black belt had spread ten miles in each direction in the last twenty years.
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 21: Most Negroes live together [...] in their own communities, such being known as black-belts, dark-towns, nigger-slums, fly-burgs, smoke-villes or simply colored districts.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 52: Black Belt [...] n [C] Black community within an urban area.
c.1990		H. Huncke ‘Oral History of Benzedrine’ in Huncke Reader (1998) 340: To end up over into the Black Belt in the South Side of Chicago – there wasn’t anything that knocked me out more.

that part of a larger urban area in which the black community lives.

1898		W.E.B. DuBois Some Efforts of Amer. Negroes 29: When I think of the hundreds that swarm in ‘Black Bottom,’ ‘Hell's Half Acre,’ ‘Smoky Row,’ ‘Tin Cup Alley,’ ‘Crappy Chute,’ ‘Wood Maney’s Bottom,’ and many other low wards of the city, my soul staggers.
1907		A.H. Shannon Racial Integrity 107: A number of policemen were detailed to raid the dives located in ‘Black Bottom.’ All negroes found in these were given their choice between working on the boats or arrest for vagrancy,.
1915		Red Cloud Chief (Lincoln, NE) 2 Sept. 6/5: Uncle Mose aspired to the elective office of justice of the peace in the ‘black bottom’ part of town.
1922		St John’s Rev. (OR) 17 Mar. 2/3: Uncle Ike aspired to the elective office of justice of the peace in the ‘black bottom’ part of town.
1931		J. Evans ‘Down in Black Bottom’ 🎵 You go down Black Bottom / Put your money in your shoe, / ’cause the black Bottom women down tger / Ain’t gonna do nothing but take it away from you.
1958		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 5 Apr. 13: ‘Bronzeville’ in Chicago, ‘Black Bottom’ in Natchez, ‘Dark Town’ in Birmingham and ‘Naptown’ in Indianapolis.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 52: Some would-be detectives picked us up down in the bottom. [Ibid.] 60: Send two cars down to black bottom.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 52: Black Bottom [...] n [C] Black community within an urban area.
1992		D. Pinckney High Cotton (1993) 30: Avenue A continued downhill, unpaved as it entered the Bottom. We didn’t have to be told who lived there.

(Aus.) a native Australian.

1910

Healesville Guardian (Vic.) 25 Feb. 2/2: Go ’ome to yer holler log, Blackbutt, and get educated.

(US) a group of black people.

1939

T.J. Farr ‘The Language of the Tennessee Mountain Regions’ in AS XIV:2 89/1: Black Cloud, a crowd of negroes.

see black crew under crew n.

(US black) an extremely dark-skinned person.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

see jungle fever under jungle adj.

see gin n.¹

(UK black) a black person.

1999

(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 195: Hey, Brenton – beast [...] They’re probably bored and wanna jail up a blackhead for the night.

(Aus.) black women seen as sex objects.

2020

D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 93: ‘And now you’re here, same dicks been dipped in black ink, puttin AIDS in our women’.

black slaves.

1864		W.W. Reade Savage Africa 237: The Slave-trade. — Its Results. — Its present State. — Its future Suppression. When the early Portuguese voyagers first commenced to trade on the Libyan coast, sealskins, gold dust, and ‘black ivory’ were the articles offered for sale.
1873		R.M. Ballantyne [bk title] Black Ivory: a tale of adventure among the slavers of East Africa.
1881		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 9 Mar. 2/3: In pressing the ‘black ivory’ business against the Boers we don’t, for a moment, imply that Dutchmen are naturally more cruel than Englishmen.
1883		Daily News 5 Nov. in Ware (1909) 32/2: Mr. Steyn [...] complained that ‘loads of black ivory’ were being constantly hawked about the country.
1884		Henley & Stevenson Admiral Guinea II vi: Did you never hear of Guinea-land and the black ivory business? (sings)— ‘A quick run to the south we had [...] Six hundred niggers in the hold and seventy we did stow.’.
1889		Kipling ‘New Dispensation I’ in Civil & Military Gaz. 10 Dec. (1909) 285: There is a fine-crusted, slave-holding instinct in the hearts of a good many deep-bosomed matrons — a ‘throw back’ to the times when we trafficked in black ivory.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1983		I.L. Allen Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 45: ‘Black’ and Terms Modified by It: [...] black-ivory [the term for blacks sold in the lucrative African slave trade. Also black-cattle. 1819].

soul food.

1979		Maledicta III:2 167: blackplate n Food eaten by Negroes; soul food.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 153: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Blackplate. Chitlins. Soul food. Greens. Grits. Gravy.

a black footman.

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

(UK/US black) unpunctuality.

1997

C. Newland Scholar 28: You have to get that poster done quicktime, not blacktime.

(N.Z. prison) a female M?ori officer.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 19/2: black toast n. a female M?ori prison officer.

that part of a larger urban area in which the black community lives, thus Blacktowner.

1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 6-12 May n.p.: It is said [they] will attempt to storm our Black Town.
1807		Monthly Mag. Jan. 1 538/1: Madras, both in the Fort and Blacktown, where the houses osten put one in mind of so many Portuguese, 'with flaming swords and sacked hats over shabby coats and dirty linen [...] The great body of the native or Blacktown stretches farther up the river.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 67: His shop, in fact, in Blacktown soon the leading shop became,.
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson (1994) 99: black town, n.p. Still the popular name of the native city of Madras, as distinguished from the Fort and southern suburbs occupied by the English residents, and the bazaars which supply their wants. The term is also used at Bombay.
1887		Cumberland Mercury (NSW) 13 Aug. 4/2: The Blacktowners yearn to inaugurate the Septennial Year by the establishment of noxious trades within their borders. That should those yearns succeed it will soon be a case of ‘sweet Blacktown I smell thee noo’.
1905		Chanute Times (KS) 22 Sept. 3/5: The rioters are stubbornly continuing their attacks and the tartars and Kurds are plundering in the ‘black town’ district.
1953		W. Fisher Waiters 234: Rufus [...] often acting as an ambassador for the people of ‘Blacktown’ in their relations with ‘Whitetown’.
1964		J. Baldwin Blues for Mister Charlie 13: blacktown: The church. A sound of mourning begins.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 52: Black Town n [C] Black community within an urban area.

(Aus./UK) a racist term for black people.

1856		W.E. Suter Dred 18: POLL. Very pretty. Cripps, didn't you tell me this old nigger was to be my property, to do as I liked with? CRIPPS. (L.) Yes, my love—to be sure I did. POLL. (striking TIFF.) Then—there, you black trash, take that.
1859		E.A. Pollard Black Diamonds 103: Well, you see de man talked French, and tain't while to tell dat to poor ignorant black trash like you.
1868		Atlantic Mthly Oct. 424/1: The former are becoming what the Southerners term ‘decent niggers,’ and the latter are turning into poor black trash.
1878		Harper’s New Mthly Mag. 57 491/1: I dessay you’ve heern tell of white trash! Well, Sir, dar’s black trash jis same as dar’s white trash.
1885		Western Mail (Perth, WA) 19 Dec. 39/5: [heading] In Company with a Cape Farmer. Prowling kaffirs or other ‘black trash’ steal his sheep and cattle.
1897		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 20 Sept. 3/6: In the plantation scene [...] he entered into the spirit of his part [...] as a sentimental nigger in his interview with the black trash.
1901		W.S. Walker In the Blood 247: This example sent Joe and Jimmie Governor out through the bush districts to wreak their vengeance upon those who had spoken of them as ‘black trash,’ because the murderers thought they were just as good as the ‘white trash’ who taught them by example.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth) Supp. 19 Dec. 25/6: The fine black specimen from Never Never stalked past [...] A blackfellow - a common nigger! One of the ‘black trash’.
1919		Brisbane Courier 15 Feb. 12/1: All we want is for the islands to be White Australian, and for them to be cleared out of there. It’s all a question of the survival of the fittest and thinkin’ bein’s like us is a mile ahead of ‘black trash’.
1926		Sydney Morn. Herald 28 Oct. 14/8: He flies from the ‘black trash’ who have risen in revolution against him.
1935		Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, Aus.) 24 Oct. 5/3: [Jack] Johnson was out to show the world that if they thought he was ‘black trash’, then to him they were nothing but ‘white trash’.
1950		W. Australian (Perth, WA) 18 Nov. 18/4: ‘Poor black trash,’ commented Echo.
1977		A. Bleasdale No More Sitting on the Old School Bench (1979) 67: Look at you, y’only provin’ our point, black trash an’ gutter scum.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] Typical Daunt black trash [...] They’ve got some minor form.

1. (Aus./N.Z.) any dark-skinned woman; thus a bit of black velvet; occas. of men; by ext., sexual intercourse with someone black.

1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 1 June 4/5: Charley J. down East hooked an allright piece of black velvet.
1899		Boy’s Own Paper 8 Apr. 438: [i.e. male slaves] I mean to trade in black velvet and coffee till I’ve made a good pile.
1899		H. Lawson ‘The Ballad of the Rouseabout’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 360: Where falls the half-caste to the strong, ‘black velvet’ to the weak.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 27 Mar. 3/3: Roy H went down to the Mission Station last Saturday.' Was it to play cricket or hook on to some black velvet?
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 13: He began to take an interest in native women, or Black Velvet as they were called collectively.
1948		D. Ballantyne Cunninghams (1986) 214: I’d like a nice piece of black velvet [...] One of those quarter-castes.
1958		G. Casey Snowball 17: Juicy, sergeant [...] The sort of black velvet that makes me sometimes wish I wasn’t a policeman.
1961		D. Bee Children of Yesterday 163: He was asked, half jokingly, if he had ever had ‘black velvet’, and said ‘No, damn you! I’m South African’.
1971		K. Gilbert Cherry Pickers III ii: It’s just another one of them white blokes [...] lookin’ for black velvet!
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 92: 100 pounds of stark-naked black velvet snoring her head off.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 23: black velvet Vulgar name for sex with a coloured woman.

2. (US) a black woman’s genitals.

1966

Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases 27: black velvet (Vulg.) [...] 2. The vagina or Pubes of a Negro female or other brunette.

see also separate entries.

see under ape n.

see African black under African adj.

1. a police or prison van.

1969–70		in DARE 253/2: (The car or wagon that takes arrested people to the police station or to jail) Black Annie.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 198: Black Annie, n. – prison transfer truck (1940s).
c.1965		(ref. to 1920s) in B. Jackson Wake Up Dead Man (1999) 8: The truck that Bud Russel drove [...] was called Black Annie.

2. (US prison, also black aunty) a whip, used for punishments.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 8/2: Black aunty, a whip (prison).
1950		California Legislature Cttee on Crime & Corrections 25: Your committee notes in passing that the Mississippi Senate has just passed a bill to control the use of the dreaded ‘black annie’ official whip at the State Penitentiary.
1962		W. Blassingame Halo of Spears 203: You get a quarter crop from Black Annie for every day you’ve missed work [...] You’ve never seen a man whipped, Allen. The working is easier.
1969		C.B. Hopper Sex in Prison 34: Inmates and staff members alike refer to the strap as ‘Black Annie’ or ‘Bull Hide’. [Ibid.] 116: He can even take ‘Black Annie,’ the whip, without begging for mercy.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 158: If a fight is witnessed by the authorities, the participants are [...] given a taste of black Annie (a whip).
c.1996		(con. 1930s) David M. Oshinsky Worse Than Slavery 149: The true symbol of authority and discipline at Parchman [Prison Farm] was a leather strap, three feet long and six inches wide, known as ‘Black Annie,’ which hung from the driver’s belt.

the female underworld.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

a kettle, esp. in phr. the pot calls the kettle black arse.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: The Pot calls the kettle Black A—, when one accuses another of what he is Deep in himself.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 5: Black-Arse, a Copper or Kettle.
1708		J. Hall Memoirs (1714) 11: Black-Arse, a Copper or Kettle.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: The Pot calls the Kettle Black-Arse, when one accuses another of what he is as deep in himself.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Black Arse a Copper or Kettle. Cant.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Black A-se. A copper or kettle. The pot calls the kettle black a—se. Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

1. (UK Und.) lock-picking.

1591		Greene Second Part of Conny-Catching in Grosart (1881–3) X 76: [They] are skilfull in the blacke Art, for picking open the tramels or lockes.
1608		Dekker Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 5: They [...] hauing excellent skill in the Black-art, thats to say in picking of locks, makes the dore suddenly fly open.
1610		Rowlands Martin Mark-all 12: Here to finde out a Knaue picking open a locke by the helpe of his black Arte.
1733		Fielding Don Quixote III vii: Do you mean to rob me, hey? [...] Let me tell you, Sirrah, you may be try’d on the Black Act, for going about disguis’d in this Manner.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		Flash Dict.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 6: Black act – act of picking locks.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 8: Black Act [sic], picking locks.
1901		Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: The black act, or the dab lay consists of picking the lock.

2. (US) chimney-sweeping.

1833

Spirit of the Times (NY) 12 Jan. 1/6: Chimney-sweepers alwatys persecute witches and fortune-tellers, because they like to have a brush at the black art.

3. the profession of undertaking.

1862

G.A. Sala Seven Sons of Mammon I 102: Rich men’s funerals in the first style of black art.

(US) used attrib. pertaining to the secret service; thus black bagging, black bag job, a clandestine activity; also used adj., v.

1980		G. Liddy Will 77: In security cases the ‘black bag job’—so called after the valise in which entry tools had been carried in the early days of the program, during the Roosevelt administration—could range over a wide variety of cases.
1980		G. Liddy Will 150: [H]e made it clear that he had on his staff at least one black-bag man—that is, a surreptitious entry specialist.
2005		B. Woodward (ref. to 1966-1972) Secret Man 126: For the six years before his death in May 1972, Hoover had prohibited the use of the so-called black-bag jobs, or surreptitious break-ins, to gather intelligence in domestic security cases.
2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 216: I was hit with a financial questionnaire, a cavity search [. . .] and my family’s past banking [...] that was a scumbag and inappropriate play. They had nothing to do with any of this. It was a black bag tactic to add pressure from within my home.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 126: These guys are black bag, all the way.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 157: The words McCarthy/black-bag job/rogue action would not pry their way into print.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 89: ‘There was no entrapment, no black-bagging. Just routine surveillance’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 229: ‘I need a Justice man to help me black-bag a doctor’s office’.

1. (US drugs) biphetamine, a strong amphetamine.

1967		US Congress: Competitive Problems in the Drug Industry 15257: The pep pills [i.e. Biphetamines] acquired such street names as Black Beauties, Black Mollies and Black Widows.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 46: black beauties [...] biphetamine capsules.
1976		R. Sabbag Snowblind (1978) 40: The implications of which were staggering and not a little bit frightening to a man who had been doing Black Beauties for thirty hours.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 53: You want a black beauty, there, sleepyhead?
1996		R. Rendell Keys to the Street 288: He wanted something with which to wash down two black beauties and a crystal methedrine. He needed pepping up.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 279: We would eat Black Beauties (amphetamines) and pick up fares without a break for hours.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 30: My husband had a thing where he’d drop black beauties and touch himself. He wouldn’t eat dinner.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 38: [F]our yellow jackets for six black beauties.

2. a depressant.

2001

ONDCP Street Terms 3: Black beauties — [...] depressants.

see under beetle n.¹

see under beetle n.¹

see under beezer n.¹

1. a firelock or musket.

1840		Vindicator 18 Apr. 4/1: Playfully, but signifantly twirling Black bess.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1868		Harpers Wkly 1 Feb. 78/1: "If ye don't put up that leetle shootin’-iron, I'll put the contents o’ old Black Bess through yer noddle quicker’n greased lightnin’’.
1869		Western Dly Press 1 Sept. 3/3: The skeleton key has superseded the Black Bess.

2. the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. (Aus. Und.) a prison van.

1882

Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/2: Black Bess lumbered Mother Shooter to the Nick yesterday. She got a dream for chovy bouncing. The prison van took Mother Shooter to Darlinghurst jail yesterday. She got six months for shoplifting.

1. (US) liquor, esp. a bottle that is circulated among the guests at a wedding party; tradition demands that everyone, irrespective of age, must kiss black betty, take a swig from the bottle.

1737		B. Franklin ‘Drinkers Dictionary’ in Pennsylvania Gazette 6 Jan. in AS XII:2 90: They come to be well understood to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK. [...] He’s kiss’d black Betty.
1821		J. Doddridge Backwoodsman and Dandy 47: Every boy and girl, old and young [...] must kiss black betty; that is to take a good slug of dram .
1827		Mass. Spy 31 Oct. n.p.: They become enamoured of blue ruin itelf. They hug the black Betty that contains it, to their bosoms.
1834		N. Ames ‘Morton’ An Old Sailor’s Yarns 277: If you’ve got any white-eye in that black betty [...] I don’t much care if a take a drop.
1880		in Greve Century Hist. of Cincinnati (1904) I 463: They didn’t forget to pass the ‘old black betty,’ filled with good old peach brandy .
1882		W. Hanna History of Greene Co., PA 160: About twelve o'clock the dancers are [...] permitted once more to kiss old black Betty’s lips (take a dram).

2. (US black) a whip used for punishment in southern US prisons.

1939		Leadbelly ‘Black Betty’ 🎵 Oh black Betty, bam de lam, / Black Betty, black Betty , bam de lam.
1943		Now 1-9 54: Black Betty is the bitter nickname given by Negro convicts to the whip which was, and still is, used in some Southern prisons.
1953		Phylon 14 59: They reenact with graphic realism the lashing of a fellow-prisoner [...] and the power of Black Betty, the ugly bull-whip.

3. (also black betsy) a police or prison van.

1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 155: One day on Main she caught a convict chain / and rode Black Betty [prison transfer bus] to her new pad.
1969–70		in DARE 253/2: (The car or wagon that takes arrested people to the police station or to jail) Black Betsy.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 197: Betty, n. – a prison bus. [Ibid.] 198: Black Betty, n. – the bus bringing inmates to the penitentiary.
c.1965		(ref. to 1940s) in B. Jackson Wake Up Dead Man (1999) 8: The truck that goes to the farms from the Walls is called Black Betty [...] Instead of having a bus like they have now, they had just a barred truck [...] They called that Black Betty.

(US) any poisonous drink, esp. knockout drops.

1896		Docs of the Assembly of the State of N.Y. 17 2705: Q. Is the black bottle supposed to be the effect of giving you a black bottle — what does it do ? A.I take it to be something to injure you. By Mr. Whittet: Q. Poison ? A. Poison, yes.
1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 328: The head nurse (he’s in for murder, and he’s rotten) taunted me with the ‘black bottle’.
1913		Sunderland Dly Echo 18 July 3/3: A Lancashire lad told me [...] when patients reached a certain stage of sickness, they were ‘given the black bottle’ to kill them off quickly.
1925		J. Tully Beggars of Life 117: Boys at the Orphanage had even told me how doctors and nurses had given the mysterious Black Bottle to sick people. And that was the last you ever heard of them. The Black Bottle contained some deadly poison.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 76: Sometimes we find a hobo who dreads going to a hospital because he fears the ‘black bottle’.
1934		T. Minehan Boy and Girl Tramps of America (1976) 152: They feed him on the black bottle because he ain’t got no friends.
1939		D. Maurer ‘Prostitutes and Criminal Argots’ in Lang. Und. (1981) 116/1: black bottle. Poison, often used as a means of suicide.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 791: black bottle – Knock-out drops (chloral hydrate) or poison.

the female genitals and pubic hair.

1770

D. Gunston (ed.) Jemmy Twitcher’s Jests 39: She fell over [...] arse over head and her black bottom was discovered; you may all guess what the beholder saw, beloved a black sight you may be sure .

1. (UK Und.) a lawyer.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		Flash Dict. n.p.: black boy a lawyer.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 6: Black box or knob, a lawyer.
1845		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Oct. 58/4: We’ll send this to Redmond’s ‘black-box’ (lawyer) and write on it some questions to be put to Ware that will turn him up.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 9: Black Box, a lawyer.
1923		Northern Whig 12 Sept. 8/6: I was fullied, and a black-box asked a couple of foont and ten deaner to be my mouthpiece.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 11: Black box – a lawyer; mouthpiece, etc.

2. (Aus. prison) a punishment of 500 lashes [the ‘black box’ being a coffin].

1935

(ref. to 1803-05) Sun (Sydney) 25 Nov. 6/6: In the convicts’ slang 500 lashes was ‘black box’, since it meant death.

1. a parson, a clergyman.

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 6: Black boy – a clergyman.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

2. a chimney sweep.

1852

Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: There was [...] a black boy (sweep) dosing with my nibs (myself) in that there ken von darkey.

3. (US prison) a policeman.

1960

(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 11: Black boy – a policeman.

a hearse.

1967–8

in DARE.

(US drugs) amphetamine.

1980		‘Gloss. of Drug Terms’ National Instit. Drug Abuse.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 3: Black cadillacs — Amphetamine.

(UK Und.) a thief who befriends a servant girl in order to gain her trust and access to her master’s house.

1899

C. Rook Hooligan Nights 133: Burglaries are often committed on the information given away by servants [...] The young man who walks out with her [i.e. a servant girl], and takes a sympathetic interest in her employers’ affairs, rarely takes a hand in the actual work. He is known as a ‘black cap’ or ‘white sheep’, and is usually looked upon as useful in his way, but a bit too soft for the hard grind of the business.

1. clergymen as a group; thus black cattle show, a gathering of clergymen.

1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 90: There’s no one minds now what those black Cattle say.
1790		W. Scott letter 6 Aug. in Lockhart Life (1896) 46/1: Yesterday was St. James’s Fair [...] There was a great show of black cattle – I mean of ministers.
1797		Sporting Mag. Nov. XI 95/2: A Provincial paper mentions, that at the last fair at Oxford, there was a prime shew of fat beasts mostly black cattle!
1820		F. M’Donogh Hermit in London V 25: ‘These black cattle eat up the fruits of the earth, sip the sweets unperceived, cut the grass under our feet, and’ — Here I stopped him. ‘You are too severe towards the clergy,’ said I.
1850		Tales & Allegories 17: ‘Parson!’ he exclaimed, ‘who’s talking about parsons? We don't want any parsons here. What’s the use of them ? I don’t like such black cattle!’.
1860		Heart-stone 56: ‘So then I know’d that one of them black cattle was near his end.’ ‘What our parson, Parson Roades! You don’t say so?’.

2. lice.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

1. (also black-coated gentry) a clergyman, a parson.

1627		R. Perrot Jacob’s Vow 52: Let us take heed how these black-coates get the day of us.
1629		J. Earle Micro-Cosmographie (5th) No. 50: A Profane Man. One that nicknames Clergymen with all the terms of reproach, as Rat, Blackcoat, and the like.
1654		Merry Mercurie 28 July 16: I call all parsons black coat quoth Cit.
1668		A. Brome ‘The Contented’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 271: ’Tis not the black coat, but the red, / Has power to make, or be the head.
1671		J. Eachard Observations 176: Suppose we should bestow upon a poor low thinking black-coat, one of our best forms, such as follows; it is five to one he would commit some ecclesiastical blunder or other, in setting his name too near [N].
1680		E. Hickeringill Reflections on Late Libel etc. 5: ’Tis some sneaking, peevish, envious, and spiteful Black-coat [...] Tell me of any Mischief, Tumults, or Rebellion, that some of these same Black-coats have not had a great hand in.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 269: May he that on the Rump so doats, / Be damn’d as deep as Doctor Oates, / That Scandal unto all black Coats.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy II 207: Gospel Fermentation, banters all our Souls; And to Fire the Nation, / Blackcoats blow the Coals.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1818		W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian (1883) 135: My means, alas! are only worth the black coat I wear. [Ibid.] 507: You are the black-coat’s son of Knocktarlite.
1822		R. Nares Gloss. (1888) I 81: †black-coat. This term became applied to a clergyman at a rather early period.
1828		Sussex Advertiser 14 Apr. 4/3: The only beaks who opposed it were the ‘black coats’.
1832		Satirist (London) 9 Dec. 398/4: [W]hat a stir there is among these black-coated gentry when a good fat living opens upon their delighted vision.
1842		C. Mathews Career of Puffer Hopkins 295: We have a wonderful run of blackcoats to this prison. They come here to get moral texts for their sermons.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 18 July 2/6: Another ‘black coat’ appeared, with similar dire intent.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 1 4/3: the monk by Lewis [...] [S]uppressed on account of its luscious pictures of the licentiousness and debauchery of the Black-coated Gentry.
1870		R.W. Emerson Society and Solitude 219: The black-coats are good company only for black-coats.
1888		Soldiers’ Stories and Sailors’ Yarns 190: The parson [...] said to the sergeant, ‘What! are you afraid, man? Why, then I suppose a black coat must show you red coats the way.’.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Nov. 12/2: At the Presbyterian ‘Festival’ only sacred songs were listed [...]. The black-coats on the platform were worth watching during the interlude.

2. (Aus.) a waiter.

[1938		Port Macquarie News (NSW) 16 July 2/6: [from New Statesman, London] Do you ever wonder, as you sit in a restaurant ordering your meal from the pale-faced black-coated figure at your side, what he thinks of you?].
1943		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. (2nd edn).

3. (US) an undertaker.

1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

1. a prison turnkey; a warder.

1809

Andrewes Dict. of the Sl. and Cant Languages.

2. a chimney sweep.

1852

Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: The chats was clinching it into us [...] specially the black cove (sweep) cause they tickled his ribs with scraping the soot of [sic] before they shot their ivories into his carcass.

1. a person whose tough exterior hides a ‘heart of gold’.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 220: Nan has nearly knocked the coffee out of the black diamond’s hand.
1821		‘Sparring Exhibitions’ in Fancy I XVII 408: The principal novelty of the day was the introduction of a new Black Diamond : and although a little bit in the rough, yet now and then some parts of his shining qualities so far peeped out, that several persons asked who he was?
1827		W. Clarke Every Night Book 59: Some time after our adventure with this black diamond, who seemed to have a taste for the pains of Pandemonium [etc.].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 75: BLACK DIAMONDS [...] talented persons of dingy or unpolished exterior.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 9: Black Diamonds, [...] talented persons of unpolished appearance.

2. (S.Afr.) an affluent, salaried black person.

2007–8

Mail and Guardian (S. Afr.) 21 Dec.–3 Jan. 20: The term ‘black diamonds’ was coined by marketers to describe well-educated, salaried African folk [...] there are 2.6 million black people in this country who qualify as ‘black diamonds’.

1. (also dusty diamonds) coal, thus a coal heaver.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 16: These Black diamonds [...] are out for a day’s spree.
1820		Morn. Post (London) 30 Oct. 4/1: The learned Dr Lushington [...] a Knight of the Thimble; a Black Diamond coal-shed keeper from Mount-street.
1822		Tom And Jerry; Musical Extravaganza 52: Black diamonds, coals, and coal heavers.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 175: He left throwing about the black diamonds for those persons who were compelled to stick to the duty of a coalheaver.
1835		‘Cock-Eyed Sukey’ in Cove in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 219: Thy eyes I see in diamond’s black, / Thy breath is Smithfield’s dungy gale.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 111/1: Black diamonds, coals, or coal heavers.
1849		T. Miller Gabarni in London 43: Were he even trusted with the favourite horse and gig to fetch a sack of black diamonds from the wharf [F&H].
1854		Durham Co. Advertiser 10 Mar. 10/4: The knowing ones in ‘black diamonds’ at the new Coal Exchange laugh at public credulity.
1862		Western Times 25 Jan. 5/3: At what a price [...] are those ‘black diamonds’, our invaluable coal, furnished to us!
1873		Derbyshire Times 8 Jan.3/1: ‘Black Diamonds’ The Coal-Owners Song [...] Cry, Hurrah! for black diamonds at ‘Twenty per ton’.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 July 9/3: [of a coal wholesaler] The ‘Black Diamond King’ of Sydney.
1888		Scribner’s Mag. ‘The Everyday Life of Railroad Men’ IV Jul.–Dec. 546: The fireman’s prosaic labors are lightened by being poetically mentioned as the handling of black diamonds.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 9: Black Diamonds, [...] coals.
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 192: The Prowler was as hard as a stale roll, and stuck to the black diamonds.
1907		C. M’Govern By Bolo and Krag 25: Being short of coal-passers on the trip, the K.O. ordered enlisted men to scramble down the hold and shovel dusty diamonds.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 7 Sept. 12/3: ‘Shot me down inter this cellar as if I was half a hundred of black diamonds’.
1911		Wash. Post 10 Dec. 4/5: The fireman is a ‘tallow pot’ and it is duty to ‘crack the diamonds’ and throw them by the ton into the firebox.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 49: It was amazing how far a shovelful of black diamonds (coal) would be made to go by an expert.
1932		Sunderland Dly Echo 12 Jan. 3/3: [photo caption] Searching for ‘black diamonds’ at Dawdon. Coal gatherers on beach .
1938		L. Beebe High Iron 219: Black Diamond: Company coal.
1945		F.H. Hubbard Railroad Avenue 333: Black Diamonds – Company coal.

2. in sing., a coal heaver.

1832		Satirist (London) 18 Nov. 376/2: A coal-whipper, alias a black diamond, was brought up to the Thames Police-office, the other day.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

full-strength traditional Coca-Cola used as a hangover cure.

2012		Urban Dict. 6 May 🌐 The black doctor Another name for Coca-Cola when drank after a heavy night of drinking.
2021		Betoota-isms 100: Black Doctor 1. 375ml can of full strength, full sugar Coca-Cola 2. A scientifically proven cure for a hangover or food poisoning.

(UK prison) a prisoner found guilty of assaulting a warder.

1877		Five Years' Penal Servitude 166: My neighbour was a black dress man and wore fetters, heavy chain [...] held up to his waist by a strap.
1882		Courier & Argus (Dundee) 1 Dec. 7/4: A ‘black dress’ man is one who has been guilty of assaulting a warder.

(Anglo-Irish) port wine.

1821

‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 45: My master kapes the best materials for making port wine, than any manufacturer of black drop in Dublin.

a parson.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Black Fly. The Greatest draw back on the Farmer is the black Fly, i.e. the Parson who takes a Tythe of the Harvest.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1804		Sporting Mag. Dec. XXV 159/1: Forbearance to the black slug, that devours one tenth of the husbandman’s labour.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1812–82		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Black fly or slug (the greatest evil to the farmer) the parson.

see black man

1. (Aus.) a newly arrived immigrant [he would still wear his black, citified hat in the bush].

1881		C. & R. Praed Policy and Passion 277: Lord! if I were Mr Dyson Maddox I’d never let it be said that a black hat had cut me out.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer I 34: A ‘black hat’ in Australian parlance means a new arrival.

2. (US) a villain, a ‘baddie’ [the traditional means of identifying a villain in films].

1969		J. Crumley One to Count Cadence (1987) 170: There are no bad guys, no black or white hats, just misguided gray ones.
1970		F. Collymore Notes for Gloss. of Barbadian Dial. 16: Black hat. Occurs in the expression to behave, or get on like a black hat, i.e. to conduct one-self in an ungentlemanly or uncouth manner.
1971		Playboy June 216: The big shoot-out with the black-hats from CBS produces a numbing series of conferences but no...canceling of the film [HDAS].
1980		W.C. Anderson Bat-21 135: Well, from where this peace monger sits, I’d say the black hats are succeeding.

the female pubic hair (presumably dark).

1788

Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 93: She is very tall, and the pit in her black heath is said to have a considerable profundity.

1. (prison) the (underground) punishment cells in a prison.

[1736		Proc. Old Bailey 8 Sept. n.p.: ‘She [i.e. a street prostitute] pulled up her Coats, and bid me look at it [i.e her genital area] - and told me it was as black as my Face’].
1776		Cuthbertson Management [of] a Battalion of Infantry 126: The prisoners in the black-hole and guard house, should be taken out of confinement every fair day, under the care of a Non-commission-officer [...] The straw in the black hole should be changed once a week.
1777		J. Howard State of Prisons 240: There are, besides, the black hole, the condemn’d hold, the cock pit, and several other parts of this irregular building, which I pass over.
1822		N.Y. American 10 Jan. 2/6: Come, come, said the watch, none of your play acting airs — into the black hole with you.
1824		J. Wight Mornings in Bow St. 153: A pair of showy young men [...] were brought up from one of the lower apartments (commonly called the Black ‘hole’) in Covent-garden watch-house.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 236: She was locked up in the black-hole during the night.
1838		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 3 Feb. 112: Ben had been deposited in the black-hole of the guard house.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend 1 159: You will gain as you won’t be put in the black hole for refractory conduct, No. 19.
1861		Dickens Great Expectations (1992) 333: The black hole of that [prison] ship warn’t a strong one [...] I escaped to the shore.
1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug, n.p.: The cells are characterized as ‘black holes,’ totally unfit to confine any criminal.
1877		S. James Vagabond Papers (3rd series) 195: The visiting justices have powers of an ordinary magistrate [...] and they can sentence to the ‘black hole,’ and to any amount of ‘solitary’.
1887		Pall Mall Gaz. 1 Dec. 2/1: Sullivan was taken below and thrust into the Black Hole of Scotland-yard [...] The cries of men [...] bludgeoned in the Black Hole were horrible.
1898		Lancs. Eve. Post 5 Dec. 3/6: It is a penal settlement of the most horrible kind. A child was sent to the black hole for some small offence, and allowed to die there of hunger.
1900		Marvel XIV:344 June 6: The cat and triangle – a flogging until a man is at death’s door – the black hole – solitary confinement – days and days of bread and water.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 657: It is very hard to communicate with anyone in the Black Hole, which is called Solitary Confinement officially. ‘Black Hole’ is only a descriptive slang term created by prisoners.

2. a police or prison cell.

1818		Times 28 Oct. 3/2: When taken to the watch house he did not know that the defendant was put into the black-hole.
1822		Tom And Jerry; Musical Extravaganza II iv: Seize upon that man, and confine him in the black-hole.
1831		Satirist (London) 9 Oct. 210/3: [of a watchhouse] [D]esignating. a dust-bin, into which felons and drunkards, larkish bucks and fair Cyprians, are crammed without distinction of persons, ‘the Black Hole’ .
1834		‘Kaatje Kekkelbek or Life Among the Hottentots’ in D.C.F. Moodie (1888) II 557: Next morn they put me in Blackhole / For one rix-dollar stealing.
1840		London Mag. Mar. 90/2: The unfortunate pair were rudely thrust forward [...] and locked up in a ‘black hole’.
1850		Bell’s Life in Sydney 12 Jan. 3/4: The black-hole should be his particular dormitory for the remainder nf the night.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 June 3/1: When he arrived there [i.e. at the lock-up], O'Keeffe shoved him into a black hole.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 274: They will think you have stolen it, and so lock you up all night in the black hole.
1897		‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Old Regime 202: All the male prisoners were locked up till six the next day, so that the women and children, who had been immured in their ‘black hole’ all the livelong day, could take a brief two hours of exercise.
1897		J. McNicoll [perf. Marie Lloyd] And she lisped when she said, ‘Yes!’ 🎵 And they put her in the black-hole / Where the wicked people go!

3. any room set aside for punishment, e.g. in a workhouse or orphanage; also used fog, for any disgustingly filthy place.

1844		Gloucester Jrnl 20 Jan. n.p.: The Birmingham ‘Black Hole’ [...] a filthy and horrid cell [in] the Birmingham Workhouse.
1846		Cork Examiner 9 Nov. 4/7: The master of the Ennistymon Workhouse has been committed to Ennis gaol for having confined two little boys in the balck-hole, or refractory ward, and that having forgotten he had left them there, he found them dead.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin What with the walloping, and the skilly, and the blackhole, it’s [i.e. an orphanage] an awful place.
1861		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 12 Oct. 3/2: [of a cheap brothel] The black hole kept by Marm F — r was in the devil of an uproar the other night [when] they quarreled about the division of spoils.
1881		Manchester Courier 8 Jan. 9/1: The ‘Black Hole’ at the Leicester Workhouse is a dark room [...] designed for punishment or refractory women.

4. the vagina; one of a number of terms that equate the vagina with hell or any similar dark, threatening place.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Family Connections 41: I thrust a finger into her black hole and spun it round.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 214: The conjugal orgy in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

5. (S.Afr. gay) in a bar, a darkened room where anonymous sex may take place .

2003

K. Cage Gayle 58/1: black hole n. a dark room provided in bars and clubs for anonymous and gratuitous sex.

1. a prison.

1824		Asiatic Jrnl June 603/2: Geesdorp, without looking at him, caused the poor stolen Amboineese to be conducted to the prison, or black-house.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 6: Black houses – prisons.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1876		Chinese Recorder Apr. 126: The low wall that surrounded the ‘black-house,’ as the prison is called.

2. any place of business where the employees are exploited by long hours and low wages.

1861

(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 224/2: I have mentioned that the black houses, or linendrapers at the west end of London, were principally supplied from the east end.

1. a funeral; thus black job master, an undertaker.

1784		R. Cumberland Natural Son in Inchbald (ed.) Modern Theatre V (1811) 248: We should have had a terrible journey of it, if we had not luckily fallen in with a black job by the way, and kept company with the corpse to Exeter cathedral.
1820		London Lit. Gaz. 12 Feb. 97/2: They might get men to be sure, who know nothing about the business: and a pretty higgledy piggledy concern they’d make of a decent black job like this. I should like to see a set of these new ones lifting a coffin.
1824		Edinburgh Annual Register for 1823 112/1: Sometimes he asked if there was ever a black job — meaning a funeral.
1832		Satirist (London) 29 Apr. 138/3: [T]his Easter affair is a complete ‘black job.’ An undertaker has got the town by the ears [...] and a coffin-maker is appointed his successor!
1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/2: I’ll be spiflicated if I wern’t laughing like an undertaker in a black job, till my bread basket ached.
1839		C.J. Lever Harry Lorrequer 91: They could not have exhibited a greater taste for a ‘black job’.
1849		Thackeray Letters (2004) 91: An expatriated parson [...] who gets his living by black jobs entirely and attends all the funerals of our country-men.
1857		Bell’s Life in London 12 Apr. 1/3: [advert] To Black Job Masters — Several English and foreign Balck Geldings [...] in good working condition.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 167: Eccentrics who, like the crazy Earl of Portsmouth, have an invincible penchant for funerals — ‘black jobs,’ as the mad lord used to call them.
1875		Southern Reporter (Selkirk) 17 June 3/3: [advert] Funeral Car [...] Black job masters should lose no time in securing one of these handsome carriages.
1876		W.P. Lennox Celebrities I 313: A little perhaps, too much suggestive of the ‘black job’ business.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. a black child born to a white couple; the assumpion being that the actual father was a black servant.

1839

Crim.-Con. Gaz. 20 Apr. 128/3: The medical men [...] say these sort of ‘black jobs’ are very common in great families, where African footmen stand behind the master’s chair staring [at] the mistress .

(US prison) solitary confinement for disciplinary reasons; often as behind the black lock(up).

1973		K. Burkhart Women in Prison 443: Black lock Solitary confinement either in an isolation cell or your own cell for a period of three days or more.
1982		in R. de Sola Crime Dict.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 9: An inmate in solitary confinement for disciplinary purposes is said to be behind the black lock or in the black lockup.
1992		J. Robert Nash Dict. Crime 31/2: black lock Solitary confinement.

(UK Und.) the gallows.

1797

Sporting Mag. July X 230/2: While on the black machine I fearful stand, / The clean white nightcap in my trembling hand.

(UK drugs) a form of synthetic cannabis.

2016

Guardian 2 May 1/1: Synthetic cannabis is having a ‘devastating impact’ in British prisons [...] Sold as ‘spice’ and ‘black mamba’.

the Devil.

1621		Jonson Masque of the Gipsies in Q. Horatius Flaccus (1640) 48: ’Tis thought fit he marche in the Infants Equipage With the Convoy, Cheats, and peckage / Out of the clutch of Harman-beckage, / To the Libkens at the Crackmans / Or some skipper of the Black-mans.
1728		Vanbrugh & Cibber Provoked Husband IV i: c. bas.: Well, the Devil fetch me, if I shall not be heartily glad to see thee well settled, child. myr.: And may the Black Gentleman tuck me under his Arm at the same time, if I shall not think myself obliged to you as long as I live.
1789		J. O’Keeffe Highland Reel 59: I believe the black gentleman has been at work in earnest.
1861		G. Meredith Evan Harrington I 37: It was her money, of course. ‘Rich as Croesus, and as wicked as the black man below!’ as dear papa used to say.
1887		Chelmsford Chron. 18 Mar. 5/3: The Black Arts and the Black Gentleman. Our former colleague [...] has been lecturing [...] on the ‘Black Arts’, with esp[ecially reference to [...] ‘raising the devil’.
1915		L.R. Dingus ‘A Word-List From Virginia’ in DN IV:iii 180: bad-man, n. The devil. Also, black-man, buggar-man.
1939		P.G. Brewster ‘Folk “Sayings” From Indiana’ in AS XIV:4 268: The following terms referring to the Devil: ‘the Old Boy,’ ‘old Hairy,’ ‘the Old Scratch,’ ‘old Nick,’ ‘the booger (bogie) man,’ ‘the Bad Man,’ ‘the Black Man,’ and ‘old Ned’.

see under molly n.²

see under mota n.

an unshaven person.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.

(UK Und.) a piece of raw meat.

1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 2: Black Ointment, n. Pieces of raw meat.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 9: Black Ointment, raw meat.
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 11: Black ointment – raw meat.

a drunkard.

1594		Greene Frier Bacon and Frier Bungay C4: I’ll be Prince of Wales ouer all the blacke pots in Oxford.
1640		T. Heywood Love’s Mistress Act II: Jugg, what’s she but sister to a black-pot.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 22 25 Oct–1 Nov. 187: Of running Bawds, Black-potts, and Canns.
[1670–80		‘Wades Reformation’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 6: Too long have I been a drunken Sot, / And spent my means on the Black Pot].

1. a derog. term used by Catholics to describe a violently anti-Catholic Protestant.

1969, 1980		in DARE.
1982		E. Lenihan Long Ago by Shannon Side 72: In that townland there was a family of Baylees who were black Protestants.
1995		Sun. Trib. (Dublin) 27 Sept. n.p.: I’m what they call a black Prod [BS].

2. a non-practising Protestant.

1968–9		in DARE.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 165: She was supposed to turn when she married poor Paddy Kerrigan, but anyone can see she’s still a black bloody Protestant at heart.

(Aus.) a mixtyure of rum and Coca-Cola.

2021

Betoota-isms 113: Black Rat [...] 1 A 375ml can of Bundy ’n’ Coke.

1. (UK Und.) a death warrant.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

2. (US) a fit of intense depression.

1864

Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly (1943) 162: We have enough to do here to keep us from dying with the black rot [HDAS].

a kettle.

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

see blackleg n.¹ (2)

a lawyer.

1818

W. Perry London Guide 74: He is sometimes brought in indebted to the Crimp [...] by what is called a long-shore attorney, or more appropriately, a black shark, and thrown into jail!!!

(US campus) formal, sober.

1959

A.J. Cox Delinquent, The Hipster and The Square (1962) 19: girl: Barbados is black shoe. hipster: Not where I’m staying. girl: Tourists and creeps [...] narrator: [...] Black shoe is formal and sober.

(US) to perform in a pornographic movie.

1990

S. Morgan Homeboy 118: A highyaller jazz musician named Horatio who blacksocked parttime for Climax productions.

1. constr. with the, the Devil; ext. as a derog. term of address.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 202: Black Spy, the Devil.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
c.1750–1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 266: Cuss you for a lobb-mouth. Call me mother you black spy.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 9: Black Spy, the devil.
1896		L. Cornford Captain Jacobus 37: For drinking, roaring drunk, hand-to-fist, and raising the Black Spy in general, commend me to the Mul-Sack’s crew.

2. a constable; an informer.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: black spy a constable, an informer.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 6: Black spy – an informer.
1845		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Oct. 57/4: ‘You’d “peach” and turn “black spy”’.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].

3. a blacksmith.

1823

Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(orig. US black) a clarinet; also attrib.

1937		B. Goodman This Thing Called Swing 9: black stick: clarinet.
1943		Billboard 9 Jan. 20/1: The black-stick artist fairly radiated. Not only did he blow superb clarinet, he bounced and weaved and kicked in slow, jazz-drenched movements delightfully his own.
1947		Billboard 1 Feb. 168/3: For his Black Stick Boogie, a lively eight-beat blues, Smith fingers his clarinet stick eight to the bar.
1956		Gautier & Panassie Guide to Jazz n.p.: blackstick: old-time slang for clarinet.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 13: Blackstick Clarinet.

1. poor quality liquor, esp. port wine.

1780		W. Falconer Marine Dict. in Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (1849) 33: Blackstrap. The English sailors call the common wines of the Mediterranean blackstrap .
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Black strap, bene carlo wine, also port.
1793		J. O’Keeffe World in a Village (1794) 27: serv.: He desires you’ll send him in a dozen of your best old port. grig.: Ha! – what, my black strap?
1800		Sporting Mag. Apr. XVI 26/1: Having drunk rather too freely of black strap the night before.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 6: His absorbent vessels had drained off three bottles of black strap.
1827		Berkshire Chron. 17 Nov. 2/1: The Turks are very sensible people. I like their name for black-strap wonderfully, ‘Sublime Port’.
1831		‘Gallery of 140 Comicalities’ Bell’s Life in London 24 June 1/2: A Bottle of Black Strap – And a Pot of Heavy.
1838		Polyanthos (NY) 9 June n.p.: A brandy sling or mug of black strap.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 126: Two bottles of undeniable black strap.
1853		G.J. Whyte-Melville Digby Grand (1890) 155: An extremely abrupt conclusion [...] empties every bumper of ‘black strap’ like a shot.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 97: BLACK-STRAP, port wine.
1867		W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 105: Black-Strap. The dark country wines of the Mediterranean. Also bad port.
1873		Sl. Dict. 85: Black Strap port wine, especially that which is thick and sweet.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 1: Black Maria, Black Bess - The police van.
1896		Regiment 13 June 168/3: There were two kinds of beyerage in fashion —‘black strap’—a rough Catalonian wine of some body, and a sweet, druggy, Malaga white wine ; the junction of these was poetically denominated ‘thunder and lightning’.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 230: Black-strap is, in America, gin mixed with molasses.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 102: There was some gin in it as well as lime-juice and lager, black-strap and wallop.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1878–9		A. Garcia Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 56: The only delicacy we had was some black-strap molasses.
1900		Chelmsford Chron. 9 Nov. 7/4: With a cigarette [...] between their lips, a bottle of second-rate military ‘blackstrap’ port [...] with feet under the mahogany.
1929		‘Wet Words in Kansas’ AS IV:5 386: Black-strap alky or pack is made from New Orleans molasses.
1931		A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 86: Terms used for intoxicating liquor: Black-strap alchy.

3. a variety of chewing tobacco.

1926

J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 217: All prisoners got a plug of ‘black strap’ chewing tobacco every week.

4. (US) very strong black coffee.

1917		Sun (NY) 21 Oct. 2/4: ‘Blackstrap’ is army for hot coffee. [...] Sometimes the lads get ‘sowbelly’ or bacon for breakfast.
1924		C.E. Mulford Hopalong Cassidy Returns 83: Nothin’ but corn pone, bacon, an’ black strap.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 30: Black Strap.— Coffee, so called from the black-strap molasses with which the beverage is sweetened in logging camps and on tramp ships in lieu of [...] sugar.
1942		Shields Dly News 4 Sept. 4/6: He [i.e. a G.I.] may say [...] that our beer is four O [...] and far better than our black strap (coffee).
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: General issue coffee [...] blackstrap.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

see black sal

(Aus.) an official limousine that ferries government members etc to and from houses, appointments and the like.

1973		Sun-Herald (Sydney) 25 Nov. 112: Fred Daly [...] has ordered a crackdown on the official use of ‘black taxis’. He has warned MPs that the long black official limousines will not wait outside flats and hotels if those who ordered them aren’t ready [GAW4].
1996		Free China Rev. 46 35: I quit and applied to be a black taxi [VIP limousine] chauffeur at a nearby company.

the vagina, the maidenhead, usu. as little black thing.

1732		Harlot’s Progress 32: ’Twas a black Thing, with a black Hole, / [...] / In this same black Hole, a white Thing was put, / With a fiery Nose, the length almost a Foot.
c.1750		‘The Black Thing’ in Bold (1979) 24: Young Colin as brisk as a bird in the spring / He wanted to play with my little black thing.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 125: Oh! hear me with pity, no trifle I sing, / ’Tis no less than the loss of my little black thing [Ibid.] Young Colin [...] / Sat toying a while with my little black thing.
1793		Bacchanalian Mag. 109: I had not the pow’r away for to spring, / He had so fast hold of my little black thing.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 12 48/3: [advert] Merry chaunter — Little Black Thing.

1. (US tramp) a tent used for the projection of films.

1921

P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 301: Black-top – moving-picture tent.

2. (US) a minor road, a back road.

1936		Arkansas (Supreme Court) Reports 289: He testified that the Sneed boy ’s car was lying or sitting about three feet from the edge of the blacktop on the south side of the highway and that the truck was over on the north side off the blacktop.
1941		Missouri WPA Guide xix: Farmers have relocated their new air-conditioned modern houses and mobile homes right up to the blacktop.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 6: He let the door swing open. The drunk promptly slid off the seat and landed on the blacktop on the seat of his pants.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 13: Madrid’s Plymouth was out there on the blacktop.
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 79: Pick up the wagon down at the blacktop.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 150: They were back in the country God forgot, two-lane blacktop running through sagebrush and sand.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 143: I’ll drop ’em in the middle of the road just before the blacktop starts.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 247: She willed herself to concentrate on the slick two-lane blacktop.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 197: Off 301 somewhere and down a couple of two-lane blacktops, near a place called Nanjemoy.

3. an asphalt playground.

1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 411: The two are standing eye-to-eye on the blacktop, leaning into each other, grimacing.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 176: Was a time when you would not leave the blacktop. You even used to drag me to those ABA games.

a mixture of stout and champagne.

1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 60: ‘Velvet’. It consisted, half and half, of champagne and porter.
1941		Aberdeen Jrnl 7 Mar. 2/4: I heard of people drinking a ‘black velvet’ [...] to cheer themselves up, of war workers having a ‘oncer’ (a good time) when they can.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 205: Top-drawer judies who curse like stable-boys and breakfast off black velvet.

(US, Western) weak black coffee.

[1637		J.A. von Mandelso Oriental Trip [trans.] n.p.: The black water of the Persians called Kahwe [...] must be drunk hot].
1850		L.W. Garrard Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail 144: Though coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other luxuries are high-priced [...] the ‘black water’ is offered with genuine free-heartedness.
1968		R.F. Adams Western Words (2nd edn) 22/2: black water A freighter’s term for weak coffee.
1975		L. Dills CB Slanguage.

1. (US teen) an unpopular female.

1943

Chicago Trib. Graphic Section 26 Dec. 7/1: Jive Talk [...] Drips. Sad Sam (or Sal). Cold potatoes. Junior jerk. Junior mess. Jerk of all trades. Dracula’s daughter. Sad specimen. Zombie. Black widow. Lead pipe. Light operator.

2. (drugs) any black capsule that contains amphetamine [the packaging].

1975

G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 56: black widow n Amphetamine plus buffering agents in a black capsule.

3. (N.Z. prison) a highly experienced senior female M?ori officer.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 19/2: black widow n. a high-ranking, female, M?ori prison officer [...] known for her toughness, experience, intelligence and insight into human nature;.

usu. of Hell’s Angels for whom it is an alleged initiation rite, performing cunnilingus on a black woman.

1971

E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972) 35: black wings. [...] Symbol worn on jackets of white motorcycle gangs to signify having had sexual relations with a Black person.

working as an undertaker; thus black worker, an undertaker’s .

1764		Low-life 87: Undertakers Men, commonly called Black-Workers [...] brushing up riusty old Cloaks and Hatbands, in order to attend the Funerals.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 302: A florid man who officiates as a waiter at the London Tavern o’nights, and sometimes takes a spell in the black work, or undertaking line of business.
1862		Liverpool Dly Post 15 July 1/5: George Brumby [...] has made very considerable additions to the Black Work and Funeral Department of his establishment.
1873		Sl. Dict. 85: Blackwork undertaking. The waiters met at public dinners are often employed during the day as mutes, etc. Omnibus and cab drivers regard blackwork as a dernier ressort.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 1: Blackwork - Undertaking.

see under cat n.¹

see dub v.¹

(UK und.) a working man.

1935

Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 5: He’s a black faced ’un: He goes to work.

(US) of a policeman, aggressive, incliined to physical violence.

1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys 243: [T]hough Sam Niles had never been a hotdog or black glove cop, he admired the [...] simplistic approach to life found in a John Wayne film.
1986		J. Ellroy Suicide Hill 119: ‘Shit! Let's lean on Eggers.’ ‘You're a black-glove cop, Hopkins. I'm not’ [ibid.] 245: ‘My partner's a black glove cop, but I keep him on a short chain’.
1995		J.R. Dunn This Side of Judgment 170: He was a black-glove cop, sporting a pair of tight leather driving gloves for sinister effect.
2013		‘Marlin’ A View from the Bottom [ebook] He had the reputation as a ‘black glove cop.’ The black glove part is a reference to sap gloves. These are leather gloved with lead shot sewed into them across the knuckles.

journalists.

1809		Satirist 5 587: Finding that the black letter gentry under his care, are somewhat sleepy, he is necessitated [...] from the indolence and the nature of his office to furnish a paper himself.
1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 17: The chaffing the Coster-kid is giving his donkey would puzzle any of the black-letter gentry.
		1823Morn. Chron. (London) 25 Aug. 3/1: We recommend the black-letter gentry to be upon the alert.
1846		G.A. Addison Correspondence Between Residents in India 254: I must refer you for further paticulars to the Rosicrucian black-letter gentry.
1859		C. Redding Memoirs of William Beckford 2 250: A small volume of his caustic remarks on the black-letter gentry got into the Fotnhill sale.
1905		Anglia 28 463: [T]he days of the ‘black-leter gentry’ [...] were not as yet.

see head nigger in charge under head n.

(US black) referring to a car with black paintwork and all-black interior upholstery and fittings.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 85: It’s black on black [...] an’ don’t give no slack!