check n.1
1. money.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs (1851) 57: He called for ‘Twenty, five-dollar checks’. [...] The dealer handed him the red checks and he piled them upon the ‘ten’. | |
| Cowboy Songs 209: But you have to show your copper checks / To get your grain and hay. | |
| Pain Killers 13: Sex and checks. [...] It’s sex and checks what drive a man back to the gettin’ high side of town. |
2. $1.
| Wise-crack Dict. 12/1: One-half check – Fifty cents. | |
| ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 330: check — a dollar. | |
| Grant’s Tomb 201: Dr. Peachy [...] dropped a coin into the blind man’s cup. It sounded like half a check. | |
| , | | DAS. |
3. a measure of a drug, usu. 28g (1oz) in a folded packet.
| Chicago Trib. 11 Oct. 14/3: A package of drug wrapped in paper is called a ‘deck,’ a ‘check,’ or a ‘bundle.’ If it is in a capsule it is called a ‘berry,’ a ‘bean,’ or a ‘cap’ [DA]. | |
| ‘Junker Lingo’ in AS VIII:2 27: The rations — usually sold at a standard price of $1.00 — are designated, according to the type of drug involved, as checks, bindles, or O.Z.’s. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Narcotics Lingo and Lore. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| ‘Love Song for Wing’ in King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 142: He’s the runner of Tenth and Montgomery [...] He holds all the check. |
4. one’s personal supply of drugs.
| ONDCP Street Terms 5: Check — Personal supply of drugs. |
In compounds
a swindler who loiters in Faro banks in order to beg checks from winning players.
| N.Y. Times 16 Jan. 8: Quinn’s next phase in life was that of a ‘check charmer’ in the Bowery. A ‘check charmer’ is a shiftless swindler who frequents faro banks and begs checks from fortunate players. |
In phrases
(orig. US) to die.
 | Amer. Humorist 11 Aug. F., 134: Do you and each of you solemnly sw’ar that you will [...] cling to each other through life till death calls upon you to cash in your earthly checks? [DA]. | |
| [ | | More Ex-Tank Tales 84: That’s an experience that’ll hold me until I cash in my last stock of whites]. |
| S.F. Call 27 Sept. 5/6: His friends have him slated for the presidency as soon as the gentleman with the mutton-chops now holding that position has the decency to cash his last check. | |
| Fulton Co. News (McConnellsburg, PA) 11 Jan. 8/2: You have got to pay a fee [...] for the privilege of being allowed to be buried after you cash in your last check. | |
| Three Soldiers 50: When I think to myself how much folks need me home [...] I juss can’t cash in my checks. | |
| ‘Jo-Jo’ in Short Stories (1937) 138: ‘Someday he’ll get drunk and just go off.’ [...] ‘Or else have a fit and cash in his checks without knowing it,’ the cop said. | |
| ‘American Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 200: Cashed his checks. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Little Men, Big World 232: It’s like it was time to cash in my cheques now. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| in Great Shark Hunt (1980) 604: Every light in town went dim when we heard he’d finally cashed his check. |
(US black) a phr. indicating that a meeting is concluded.
| Third Ear n.p.: check, please an expression used to terminate a social encounter, to indicate that it is time to leave. |
(US) to die.
| Specter Riders 60: Dead as a door-nail [...] Got his checks, sure’s shootin’ [HDAS]. |
(US) to die.
| Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 7 Mar. 6/1: Those noble and peril-loving souls have nearly all ‘handed in their checks’ [DA]. | |
| Republican Banner 27 Sept. 3/2: I began to feel as though I had played away four years in a game of Political Faro, and ‘handed in my checks’ to old Time the remorseless dealer [DA]. | |
| Galaxy (N.Y.) July 61: From this operation [...] has come one of the most common of modern slang phrases, ‘handing in his checks,’ as a synonym for death; and there is something of a grotesque humor in the metaphor [...] There is something funereal in the gravity and decorum of the faro room, and there is a deal of the utter abandon of death in the staid recklessness with which an infatuated player stakes his last dollar on the turn of a card. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Bristol Magpie 5 Apr.7/2: So when Inspector Death came round, / He ‘handed in his checks’. | |
| Forty Years a Gambler 88: When I hand in my checks, I will leave the notes with my dear old mother-in-law for collection. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Aug. 19/3: A memory of Tom O’Brien, the veteran and esteemed attorney, who handed in his checks a week or two ago. | |
| ‘Wrinkles’ Sporting Times 16 Apr. 1/3: Soon to hand in his checks he was fated. | |
| Thirty-Nine Steps (1930) 40: He was booked all right, and was going to hand in his checks on June 14th. | |
| ‘Dialect Words and Phrases from West-Central West Virginia’ in AS II:8 356: Mr. James handed in his checks last night. | |
| Dames Don’t Care (1960) 114: Her husband is slowly handin’ in his checks. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | A Life (1981) Act II: Dezzie, we’re all goin’ downhill. ’S a fact. And in your case the cells of the brain is handin’ in its cards. |
(orig. US) to die.
| Ten Nights in a Bar-Room IV ii: Your game is about up, so you’d better pass in your checks! | |
| Nonsense 34: Miranda’s father had passed in his checks. He grew tired of life, and after a fit of family happiness took the poison the rats refused. | |
| Sazerac Lying Club 237: A Celestial maiden named Sing Loy passed in her checks. | |
| Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 31 May 35/2: Ef yer [...] want a pard that’ll stick to to ye till ye pass in yer checks, just squeal . | |
| Forty Years a Gambler 217: Sherman Thurston, my old friend, is dead. He passed in his checks, shuffled his last cards, dealt his final lay-out, and been gathered to the gods. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Fire Trumpet III 232: Poor Jack might have done, but he’s passed on his cheque. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 19 July 5/4: And then I watch with a sickly grin / While the patient ‘passes his counters in.’. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 30 Dec. 1/6: Frank Stubly [...] after missing a forlorn hope out Mount Laydon way [...] passed in his checks. | |
| Mirror of Life 6 June 15/2: [O]ld Charley Conquest [...] had barely received his pension when he paid in his checks. [He] died at Brighton at the age of three score and ten. | |
| (con. 1875) Cruise of the ‘Cachalot’ 22: Anyhow, it killed him promptly, while almost directly after another one [i.e. a whale] saved further trouble by passing in his own checks. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Apr. 32/2: The old type of boundary-rider is fast dying out, or, as he himself would say, ‘passing in.’. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Truth (London) 26 Mar. 828/2: ‘Evie, dear, do you know I've often been wishing lately that I could see you happily married before I pass in my checks.’ ‘Pass in your checks! Oh, Pater! [...] I hope you won't do that for many a day to come’. | |
| Valley of the Moon (1914) 444: A doctor an’ a cook traveled with ’m till he passed in his checks. | |
| Ulysses 406: Chum o yourn passed in his checks? | |
| Law O’ The Lariat 215: There’s a fella here passin’ in his checks. | |
| Sucker’s Progress 336: Thompson finally passed in his own checks on the night of March 11, 1884, when he and King Fisher [...] were shot down in a variety theater. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Lingo 58: Soldiers had plenty of euphemisms for death and the devices that brought it. These included [...] the Americanism to pass in your cheques (checks). |
(US) to die.
| ‘Dancing Dan’s Christmas’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 262: Before the old doll puts her checks back in the rack. |
(US) to die.
| Hermit of Far End Ch. XXXIX 🌐 I am enclosing herewith a properly attested record of the facts, Miles, in case I should send in my checks while I’m at the other side of the world. |