Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) to work as a prostitute.

1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 16 Apr. n.p.: I will refrain from mentioning their private affairs prior to their ‘turning out’.
1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Oct. 6/3: ‘I’d rather stay in a “house.” I’ve “turned out,” you know and can’t very well get back where I was before’.
1965		T. Wolfe Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1966) 24: The call girl who [...] was spending Monday through Friday at Rose de Lima and ‘turning out’ [...] to the tune of $200 to $300 a weekend.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 258: turn out 1. Become a prostitute.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 233: She’d ‘turned out’, become a high-priced call girl for a pimp.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 121: Susan, the madam, is a former working girl herself, having ‘turned out’ [...] after a divorce.

2. to initiate a newcomer in a variety of situations, e.g. pimp to run a prostitute on the streets; Hell’s Angels to use a woman for multiple sex; (US Und.) to make a new inmate into a prison homosexual (usu. only for the duration of their sentence).

1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: Mother Willit, of Gerrard Street, who could turn out forty dress mots; and, to crack her own wids, ‘So help her kidnies, she al’us turned her gals out with a clean a—e and a good tog’.
1853		H.D. Eastman Fast Man’s Directory 15: Miss emma scovil, 142 Church St. This young lady ‘turned out’ in Philadelphia three years ago [...] came to New York and is now landlady of this house.
1879		London Life 31 May 7/2: [of a first job] I was born at Camberwell, breeched at Bethnal Green, trained at Islington, and turned out at Notting Hill.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 12: Ben Marks himself ‘turned out’ many of the young men who were later to become notorious.
c.1951		N. Algren ‘Watch Out for Daddy’ in Entrapment (2009) 119: ‘I weren’t no hare on the mountain. I’d been pigmeat two whole years.’ ‘Who made a whoor out of you? Who turned you out?’.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 40: Turned old me on, then turned me out [...] We wanted to get a chain scene going.
1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 81: They claimed I turned out Jimmy Brown [...] They claimed I put him to boosting for his fixes.
1971		J. Mandelkau Buttons 132: We stripped her and turned her out.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 216: turn out, v. – to give up one’s masculine identity in exchange for that of a female.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 161: rape another convict [...] turn somebody out.
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 119: The strong ones were always the best once they had been turned out.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 118: Teenage vernacular is heavily laced with expressions borrowed from the pimp’s vocabulary. Terms like [...] turn someone out, put her on the block. [Ibid.] 127: To turn someone out means to introduce someone to something new and often illicit. In sexual terms, it means turning a male into a homosexual (punk) or a woman into a lesbian (bulldagger) or a prostitute. [Ibid.] 127: Dude’ll turn you out if you let ’im. Make a punk outa ’im. Fuck ’im. Make a bitch outa ’im.
1986		J. Ellroy Silent Terror 67: If an inmate offered you candy or cigarettes, refuse him immediately, because he wanted to ‘turn you out.’.
1989		Ice-T ‘You Played Yourself’ 🎵 You meet a freak, you try to turn her out.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 60: Turned Out also Turn a Person Out Changing a person’s sexual habits from heterosexual to homosexual.
1993		Dr Dre ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ 🎵 Turnin’ them trick ass hoes the fuck out.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 182: [I’m] heading downtown these days. Mel turned me out on smack. Go fast don’t cut it any more.
1999		Guardian Editor 28 May 20: Turn out: To rape or make into a ‘punk.’.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 199: He don’t do nothin’ about it [i.e. a sexy girl] then he like some ignorant can’t-read nigga, like he a turned-out punk.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Turn Out: To rape or make into a ‘punk.’.
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 626: Wanna turn her out? Wanna pimp her out?
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 129: I could probably make more turning you out in the joint than bein’ a cop.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 43: So he recruited me [as an informer] [...] or – as they say in the streets – ‘turned me out.’.
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 235: How much money does he pull in turning out young churchgoing girls?
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] They were allowed to turn other inmates out—sell them to suck cock or put out for the Aryans.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 139: Fullerton turned Joan out as an FBI informant.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 204: ‘They have their own versions of pimps, the baby dealers. It’s not like the big guys wait for them to finish school before they turn them out’.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 71: If they want to turn you out and rape you, a group of guys come and do that.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 224: Bayless turned me out as an informant.

3. (US Und.) of a young confidence trickster, to commence one’s career.

1929		E. Booth Stealing Through Life 283: ‘I didn’t know you were going against this racket,’ Buddy said to me. ‘When did you turn out?’.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con (1999) 275: To Turn Out [...] 2. intr. For a grifter to start on the rackets.

4. to start using a drug.

1961

Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia 61: I turned out on heroin for the first time in 1957.

5. (US black) to use unconventional means to introduce someone to any important first experience.

1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 273: Well, Alexander finally turned himself out.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 162: My sister was real swingin’ [...] She got one ’er partners to freak off wid me when I turn thirteen. [...] She turn me out – but she broke my heart!

6. (US black) to start living/working on the streets.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 258: turn out [...] 2. Make the streets one’s primary environment. 3. Become street-wise.

7. to take someone’s virginity.

1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 43: By the end of that summer Sharon had turned several of us out.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 123: That’s the first real sexual relationship ’cause she turned me out! That was my first intimate sexual relationship.

8. (US black) to offer one’s support, too rally to someone’s defence.

2000

W.D. Myers ‘Monkeyman’ in 145th Street 78: ‘I got to be watching Monkeyman’s back the same way he turned out for me’.