Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. term for an East Asian person, esp. Vietnamese, Korean.

1948		J.L. Riordan ‘A.V.G. Lingo’ in AS XXIII:1 30: Life among our little brown brothers—who were sometimes less affectionately referred to as slopies, coosies, or flange-heads—was much different from that among the Wogs in India.
1948		A.A. Weinstein Barbed Wire Surgeon 270: ‘Sergeant Aria [...] these men, as you know, have beri-beri heart disease.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ the slopehead said.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 4: You seen any slopeheads?
1962		Richard McKenna Sand Pebbles n.p.: ‘They’ll run,’ Crosley said. ‘Slopeheads always run.’.
1971		Army Reporter Feb. in Maledicta VI:1+2 251: I know you numbah fuckin’ ten cheap charlie, so di-fucking-mau, slopehead, and never come this way again.
1978		T. O’Brien Going After Cacciato (1980) 9: A letter [...] that described Japan as smoky and full of slopes.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 168: He just might be telling the truth about not knowing the slope too well.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 60: A nice little slopie who had luckily been waiting outside this joint all night.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 92: Ockers are worried that the slant-eyes, slopeheads, wogs and other reffos are going to take over the joint.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 144: Had to pay this Turkish slopehead 18 bucks to get the thing in one of those crates.
1991		W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 36: Fighting the fucking gooks and slants and slopes.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 68: He’d be damned if any slopeheads were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy’s birthright.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: slope n. Asian person.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 95: I can hear Hugo ranting about giving Hong Kong back to the slopeheads.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 342: What kind of reading can you get off little slopes like that?
2008		G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 204: The Jews and the slopes who we were robbin, they knew we meant business.
2011		(con. 1968) P.L. Nelson Incessant Voice of War 3: To him, all orientals are the same. Slopes, Gooks, Zips.
2014		Guardian 28 July 🌐 Ofcom says BBC breached broadcasting rules when it allowed presenter to use word ‘slope’ about Asian man.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] Someone had scratched the word ‘slopes’ into the window [...] The racist scum [...] could pollute even the places they couldn’t get into.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 48: [T]hat filth what killed the poor slopes at Hiroshima.

2. (US black) a shoulder.

1944

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 16 Sept. 12A: She had a mellow index: the grass streamed over her slopes like Niagara Falls.

3. attrib. use of sense 1.

1958

(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 113: Cost us a slopehead flag and two months’ coke rations.

4. used for any foreigner, not necessarily Asian.

1987

‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 126: Some people don’t have the decency and respect for human life that make us different from the slopeheads in Communist Russia.