Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) catchphrase shouted in the streets (the target presumably being a woman and the inference that she is a prostitute).

1842

Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 3 Dec. n.p.: ‘‘How are you?’ ‘How do you live, and what do you do in the day-time?’ ‘Here, here!’ ‘If you do’nt look out we’ll get a camel on you,’ are some of the slang terms you can hear at any moment [...] in Gotham.

(W.I.) to live comfortably.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

see lie at rack and manger under lie v.¹

of a man, to be dominated by one’s wife.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Queen street. A man governed by his wife, is said to live in Queen street, or at the sign of the Queen’s Head.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 71: ‘The joskin lives in Queen Street,’ the fool is governed entirely by his wife.
1873		Sl. Dict.

see under aunt n.

see under bach n.

see live large under large adv.

see under high adj.¹

(N.Z.) to live comfortably.

1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 147: You can shove the bully beef. Livin in a good paddock. Never had it better. Never had it better. On the box seat.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 128: live in a good paddock Comfortable lifestyle or eat well, or both. Mid C20.

see live at the sign of the Queen’s Head

see under ear n.¹

1. to have a poor standard of living.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive.

2. to feel depressed.

1994

J.B. Thorogood ‘The Terror’ [poem] Bipolar World.net 🌐 For sixteen years / I lived high; / or I lived low. / Then came the ‘miracle drug’... / it let me live flat, (if you can call that living).

(Aus.) to live as a tramp.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

(usu. Aus./N.Z.) to subsist on a bare minimum of material wants.

1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 178: ‘[F]or five days we lived on nothing but the smell av an oil-rag’.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Aug. 11/3: They [the inmates] will not be allowed any pensions until 1st Sept., and their certificates or vouchers are not given to them until they qualify by living outside of the institutions – for a month or so, perhaps, on the smell of an oil-rag, or on board-and-lodging obtained on credit.
1911		E.S. Sorenson Fossicker in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 267: ‘There was Bill Brown,’ he went on, ‘used to camp under the rise there – livin’ on the smell of an oil rag for years.’.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 July 36/3: As we do not employ any almond-eyed Celestials on our staff who can exist on rice or live off the smell of an oil-rag, we draw the line at bolstering up any fiction which would encourage the sweating of employees and deprive them of a fair service.
1921		Truth (Brisbane) 13 Feb. 3/5: Half of them [i.e. English war brides] are stunted in growth. (Why?) Simply because they havo been brought up on the smell of an oily rag. They didn’t know what it was to have a feed until they came out to Aussie Land.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 96: ‘Oh, she’s really not a bad old girl,’ mum says mildly. ‘She lives on “the smell of an oiled rag”, and really I don’t know how pensioners manage with inflation so bad. They can’t have two sixpences to jingle on a tombstone.’.
2001		(ref. to 1950s) C. Lee Eight Bells & Top Masts 140: Come down here [i.e Australia], live on nothing but the smell of an oil rag and take all our jobs.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 129: live off/on the smell of an oil/oily rag Very frugal living. ANZ from mid C19.

(W.I.) to scrounge off someone.

1959		A. Salkey Quality of Violence (1978) 19: All he’s doing is trying to live on your eye-top. Just that! He believe that we must support him.
1995		Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 31: Live-pon-y’eye-top to scrounge.

(Irish) to live very frugally.

1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 292: Manned by half a million bored young Frenchmen, who had grown up on the skin of a rasher, their father’s reward for the Cavalry of Verdun.
1987		L. Redmond Emerald Square 278: Towns and cities lived on the skin of a rasher, while daily, herds of cattle were butchered and left to rot.

see under shallow adj.

see under square adv.

see under cat n.¹

tipsy.

1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 87: Proverbiall Periphrases of one drunk. He’s disguised [...] He’s well to live.
1737		B. Franklin ‘Drinkers Dictionary’ in Pennsylvania Gazette 6 Jan. in AS XII:2 91: They come to be well understood to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK. [...] Well to live.
1821		N.-Y. American 21 Nov. 2/6: They had seen him ‘merry,’ ‘well to live,’ ‘pretty well cock’d,’ &c but they had not seen him so drunk that he could not stand up.
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 176: He was seldom downright drunk; but was often [...] pretty well to live.

(orig. US) at a vital or central point of one’s emotions, e.g. that gets me right where I live.

1860		J.G. Holland Miss Gilbert’s Career 386: When that little wife of mine says, ‘Tom, you’re a good feller, God bless you,’ it goes right in where I live [DA].
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 25 Sept. 6/4: This suggestion [i.e. to have a drink] seemed to strike the serio-comic lady where she lived.
1886		W.D. Howells in Century Mag. (N.Y.) Feb. 511/1: If I could only have reached him where he lives, as our slang says! [DA].
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 122: Hit him where he lives!
1907		D. Runyon ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 13: ‘Strike-soldiers wanted — two dollars a day and found.’ [...] ‘Well, that’s where I live [...] I’m the original soldier.’.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Oct. 43/1: Williams was a dishonest man, and the glare of greed that came into his small, rat-like eyes when I spoke of hundreds was not pleasant to see. The idea took him where he lived, and he clutched the copy of the new Act.
1911		E.B. Morris Freshman in College Comedies 16: Jerome. She showed tyou where you lived, fresh.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘Out of His Class’ in Taking the Count 178: ‘Tough boys is right where we live!’ boasted Arthur.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘The Game’ in Moods of Ginger Mick 110: They ’ave picked me ’cos they trust me; an’ it’s got me where I live.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 93: He brought [...] the cloudy yellow cocktails in the glass pitcher in the centre. The men babbled, ‘Oh, gosh, have a look!’ and ‘This gets me right where I live!’.
1947		S.J. Perelman ‘The Longer the Lip’ in Keep It Crisp 153: ‘That hits me where I live, fellow,’ I said shyly.
1952		N.Y. Herald Trib. 21 Sept. IV 1/2: You have to ride with the punches; you got to housebreak it for the top brass; you have to hit ’em where they live.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 121: That hit me where I live.
1967		J. Olsen Black is Best 128: The idea of going in the Army with all those strangers [...] man, that really hit him where he lived!
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 119: All I know is, you keep hitting me where I live.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 190: I know you, Sonny Jim. I know where you live.