Green’s Dictionary of Slang

for crying out loud! excl.

a euph. for for Christ’s sake! excl.

1921		Union Postal Clerk 17 56: ‘Well, for crying out loud.’ ‘Go on take a bite.’ ‘Good morning, Pallie’.
1929		High Pressure Pete [comic strip] Fer cryin’ out loud!
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 200: For crying out loud, Strangler, don’t hand me no riddles.
1947		N. Marsh Final Curtain (1958) 97: Well, for crying out loud [...] look who’s here.
1952		M. Millar Vanish in an Instant (2016) 59: ‘Oh, for crying in the skink [...] give her the bottle’.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 181: Well, for crying out loud!
1960		H.E. Bates When the Green Woods Laugh (1985) 278: For crying out gently, Pop thought. What next?
1964		L. Hansberry Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window in Three Negro Plays (1969) I ii: She’s in analysis, for crying out loud!
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 42: ‘For crying out loud [...] Even a child knows better than that’.
1977		(con. 1960s) Nicholson & Smith Spend, Spend, Spend (1978) 190: Don’t give the show away Barbara for crying out loud.
1981		B. Hoy ‘Uncle George’ in Wright Cockney Dial. and Sl. (1981) 109: Britannia’s gawn right up the Swanee, / Wiv closed minces we foller the oafs. / We’re in bad two-an’-eights / Buckle to, mi ol’ mates / And for cryin’ aht lahd use yer loafs!
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 101: For crying out fucking loud.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 171: For crying out loud, if you had a woman [...] you didn’t cheat on her.
2005		S. Inman Verlavaton 2: A lawn mower with a horn, for crying out loud.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 101: ‘Oh, for crying out loud. I wasn’t never no alcoholic’.