Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a coffee and brandy.

a.1909

press cutting in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 83/2: On being served the barmaid asked him to treat her. He inquired what she would have, and she said coffee and ‘b’. He asked what she meant by ‘b’, and she said brandy, or as they called it ‘coffee and cold water’.

see coffee-and adj.

(US) a very small salary.

1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Nov. 14/1: Of those at the meeting – absolutely the oldest hand – he has had over 19 years of it – now earns a precarious two-drinks-and-a-sandwich by bell-ringing at auction sales.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 22: I am singing for coffee and cakes at a crib on Cottage Grove Ave.
1966		US Congress Hearings 4 1471: They are not working for coffee and cakes. Don't forget that. Mr. Cardwell.
1986		S. Longstreet (ref. to 1917) Storyville to Harlem 59: When the Navy closed the sporting houses of Storyville in 1917, a lot of jazz musicians working for coffee and cakes, a survival income, were out in the cold.
2009		A. Handley Kiss Your Elbow 84: Paul Showers who played her husband was on loan from Hollywood and none of them was working for coffee and cakes.

(US Und.) a second-rate, unthreatening gangster.

1927

D. Hammett ‘The Big Knockover’ Story Omnibus (1966) 310: These coffee-and-doughnut guns are going to rub Red out.

1. (US female) underwear, drawers.

1855

Broadway Belle (NY) 26 Feb. n.p.: ‘What shall I do — where shall I go? / My coffee-bag has dropped below! / I cannot move’.

2. (US black/tramp) a coat pocket.

1925		(ref. to 1912) G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 124: Ridin’ the cushions wid a ducat in yer coffee-bag; that is, riding inside a coach with a ticket in one’s coat pocket.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

(US black) a wake.

1971

(con. 1920s) G.M. Foster Pops Foster 66: The wakes for the dead were the big thing. They also called the wakes ‘Coffee Boats’ or just ‘Boats’.

(US prison) a nickname for a Special Circumstances release.

1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 287: A Special Circumstances release. They call them coffee break paroles because that’s about how long they take.
1991		S.J. Cannell Final Victim 53: ‘I need to get him a coffee break parole for a few days, and I don't wanna fuck around trying to get a furlough request verified.’ ‘You want me to write a Special Circumstances Release on a Federal prisoner?’.
2001		R. Rebein Hicks, Tribes and Dirty Realists 160: The ‘son’ might go free (Ron through an implausible escape, Joe through a bought, ‘coffee-break’ parole).

1. a shock, a disappointment.

1859

Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 5/2: This [a gambling loss] was a coffee-cooler for our hero, and how to get out of it, he knew not.

2. an idler, a shirker; thus cool coffee v., to shirk; also attrib.

1862		in Civil War Times Illus. (Apr. 1969) July 39: The good came here this morning to thank God for their deliverance from death, and the rest [...] were coffee-coolers and skedaddlers during our retreat.
1873		Army & Navy Jrnl 15 Feb. 426/2: When the battle is over you’ll always find the teamsters know all about it, and when the campaign is over, they do nine-tenths of the blowing, the residue being furnished by the ‘coffee coolers’.
c.1880		‘O’Reilly’ [US army poem] He licked a coffee-cooler, because he said he’d tell, / He’s ten days absent-with-out-leave, / O’Reilly’s gone to Hell.
1890		F. Remington letter 12 Nov. in Splete (1988) 106: He don’t love these old ‘coffee coolers’.
1894		Mirror of Life 26 May 11/4: frank craig, the coffee cooler, contemplates coming to this country in July, when he will challenge any middle-weight.
1899		New Oxford Item (Gettysburg, PA) 7/1: ‘Coffee coolers’ are those who manage to get detached from their regiments in the field and get assigned to more or less easy and eminently safe berths in Manila.
1906		C. M’Govern ‘Soldier Sl.’ in Sarjint Larry an’ Frinds n.p.: coffee-cooler:—A soldier or officer with a sinecure.
1912		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 28: He got sick eating at the Coffee Coolers outing.
1918		Hawera & Normanby Star (N.Z.) 13 June 6: [heading] What Is a Coffee Cooler? Americans have coined a new name for officers and men holding soft jobs.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 59: Coffee Cooler, A: A shirker (U.S. Army slang).
1928		(con. 1918) L. Nason Top Kick 74: How do I know you men haven’t been cooling coffee over in the wheat all day.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Coffee Cooking [sic] Leaning on the shovel or loafing.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

3. (US) a prospector.

1914		B.T. Harvey ‘Addenda – The Northwest’ in DN IV:ii 162: coffee-cooler, n. A prospector.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 201: Prospectors were sometimes called ‘coffee-coolers’.

4. (US black) the lips, esp. when large and protuberant [i.e. as used to blow on hot coffee].

1972

D. Claerbaut Black Jargon in White America 60: coffee coolers n. the lips of a black person.

a party at which coffee is served.

1885		Observer and Freelance (Wellington) 29 Aug. 9/4: At the spooning-class coffee-fight, publicans, sinners, and saints, shook hands over the coffee-pot.
1886		Kiama Reporter (NSW) 27 Nov. 2/2: The Kiama Salvationists have been having a high time of it this week [...] on Thursday night they had a big coffee-fight.

1. in sexual contexts, playing on grind v. (1a)

2. (also coffee pot) as a machine [its noise, which resembles that of the SE coffee grinder].

see separate entries.

1. the mouth.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 236/2: ca. 1800–70.

2. (UK Und.) a watchman’s rattle.

1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II ii: (Sounds rattle) Come, come, silence your coffee-mill.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

1. (US) a small lunch-room.

1928		E. Ferber ‘Hey! Taxi!’ in One Basket (1947) 330: He drove to a near-by lunchroom whose sign said Jack’s Coffee Pot.
1934		B. Appel Brain Guy (1937) 201: After hanging out on corners, in speaks and coffee-pots.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 3: The same coffee-pots with their dirt-streaked windows.
1956		‘Ed Lacy’ Men from the Boys (1967) 36: I had a sudden longing for watermelon and stopped in at the corner coffeepot.
1961		L. Block Diet of Treacle (2008) 108: A check of available coffee pots in the area yielded nothing.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 343: Beside the gate is a granite gatehouse, a checkpoint with coffee pot.
2007		Santa Fe New Mexican (NM) 2 Sept. Z023/3: Stiles looked up from his seat at the local coffee pot.

2. (US teen) the ‘life and soul’ of a party.

1961

Long Beach Press-Telegram 14 Dec. 8: A coffee pot is the life of the party.

(US) Broadway, New York City.

1927		Morn. Call (Allentown, PA) 8 Dec. 10/5: Broadway is known as [...] ‘Coffee Pot Canyon’.
1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 10 July [synd. col.] Any of the underworlders along Coffee Pot Canyon will tell you that people who ‘know’ why Rothstein or Marlow were knocked off never talk about it .
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1951		Green & Laurie Show Biz from Vaude to Video 568: Coffee Pot Canyon – Times Square, because of the large number of all-nite drugstores and cafeterias there.
1963		Salt Lake Tribune (UT) 31 July 16/4: Q. What are some nicknames for Broadway [...] A. Some commonly used nicknames are: The Alley, Aspirin Alley, Big Artery, Coffee Pot Canyon, Gay White Way, Dirty White Way, Hardened Artery, Main Artery, Main Drag, Main Stem, Mazda Lane, Neon Boulevard, The Big Street.

(US) coffee with a shot of pure alcohol.

1850		P.L. Simmonds Coffee as it Is, and as it Ought to be 59: Here is a receipe for making ‘Coffee Royal,’ by a sportsman. Gloria is a redolent mixture of coffee, loaf sugar (sugar-candy is better), and cognac.
1862		W.S. Hayward Hunted to Death 117: That other fellow must have a head, and no mistake; fancy drinking champagne and whisky'punch all night, and then, instead of going to bed like a Christian, drinking hock and soda water, 'coffee royal,' and starting afresh.
1870		R.F. Burton Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay 293: The coffee must be made ‘coffee royal’ if you would drink it; and the tea is the pot-house (‘pulperia’) style.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 23 Dec. 1/4: After breakfast (on tinned fish and ‘coffee-royal’) [etc.].
1896		Pacific Commercial (HI) 9 July 5/3: He would take a glass of wine at lunch and dinner, and perhaps coffee royal for breakfast.
1919		Butte Dly Bull. (MT) 17 Jan. n.p.: One of his patrons who developed a taste.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 187: Coffee-royal’s better [...] There ain’t nothin’ stronger in the booze line than pure alky mixed with jamocha.

see separate entries.

(US) the vagina.

1935		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 441: She knocked a little sugar up her coffee spout.
1992		Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore I 441: coffee-spout (pot) as vagina.

(US) a bushy moustache.

1926		Truth (Brisbane) 1 Aug. 20/5: The coffee strainer is another good whisker for general purposes. Was in great favor in the days when there was more froth and less XXX's in the beer [...] Beer drinkers developed a great, sucking effect with this ziff, and tooth-brushes were unnecessary.
1977		Journal-Courier (Jacksonville, IL) 6 Nov. 3/2: George [...] was bereft of all hirsute adornment except a bushy mustache, which was a genuine ‘coffee strainer’ indeed [DARE].

(Can. prison) the last day of one’s sentence: one has breakfast but is released before the other meals.

1978

R. Caron Go-Boy! 99: I’ve only got sixteen days and a coffee left.

see Croton (cocktail) n.

see take a grinder under grinder n.¹