Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. gin, esp. high-quality gin.

1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 10: In Compassion to the old Woman, [they] gave her the Three-Half-Pence back again, bidding her buy a Quartern of Max with it to cheer her Spirits.
1747		Life and Character of Moll King 11: Let me see, [...] a Double Gage of Rum Slobber, is Thrums; and a Quartern of Max, is three Megs.
1784		Reading Mercury 3 May 4/2: A glass of as good maxamus as ever tipp’d over an exciseman’s tongue.
c.1800		‘A Scene in the Election’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 69: A glass of as good maximus as e’er tip’t over an exciseman’s tongue.
1810		‘Jonny Raw and Polly Clark’ in Batchelar’s Jovial Fellows Collection of Songs 4: She got no max, so blow’d up well.
1820		‘Widow Waddle, of Chickabiddy Lane’ in Merry Melodist 6: Mrs. Tick, one day, inflam’d with max and muggy weather, / She with a joint-stool broke the peace, and Tommy’s head together.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 268: When the fast-setting sun of our life’s dimly shining — / Oh, brighten his beams with ‘Old Max’.
1833		Satirist (London) 14 Apr. 541/1: The aristocratic affection for all-max.
1833		‘A Crowing Death’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 15: Close to a gin-shop Fish-Meg stood [...] And every hour to warm her blood, / Cried, ‘Landlord bring some max!’.
1841		‘A Week’s Matrimony’ Dublin Comic Songster 293: Ten goes of max put out of sight.
1842		Australasian Chron. (Sydney) 19 July 2/1: On all max, lush, and lightning’s flash, the many wax too prolix.
1846		New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 8: Song and joke swim amid the inspiring max.
1853		Dickens ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: For one article of drink, gin, we have [...] max, juniper, gatter, duke, jackey, tape, blue-ruin, cream of the valley, white satin, old Tom.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 June 3/2: He (the indigo) tasted it and discovered it to be ‘max’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 160/1: A ‘go of rum,’ or a ‘glass of max,’ – for so a dram of neat spirit was called then.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1888		W. Besant Fifty Years Ago 163: The Royal Saloon, Piccadilly, where one looked in for a ‘few goes of the max’.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 21 Dec. 11/2: [He] took a long pnll at his maxy-bottle — maxy means Presbyterian cardial, you know, a beverage which the great man was very partial to.

2. (UK Und.) any form of alcohol.

1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 110: Now, my covey [...] You don’t seem to be over well off in regard o’ licker. Come, come, an’ take a drop o’ max with us.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 51/2: We’re all ‘lushing’ like blazes on Port, Madeira and every other ‘max’ in the ‘drum’.

3. (US campus) the maximum score or achievement in an examination, the student who achieves this.

1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 310: max. [...] At Union College, he who receives the highest possible number of marks, which is one hundred, in each study, for a term, is said to take Max (or maximum); to be a Max scholar.
1862		G.C. Strong Cadet Life W. Point 64: [He was] working out an unmistakable ‘max’ in the mathematical section-room [DA].
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 45: max, n. Maximum mark.
1937		K. Banning West Point Today 296: Max, n. A complete success in recitation; a maximum mark of 3.0 [DA].
1944		Chillicothe (MO) Constitution-Trib. 11 Aug. 2/3: He was neither a ‘max’ (top rank in studies) nor a ‘goat’ (in lower sections of his class).

4. (US Und.) the maximum sentence for an offence.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 137/1: Max. (P) The maximum limit of an indeterminate prison sentence; the maximum penalty, other than capital punishment, provided by law for any specific crime.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 249: The rest of me was in Sing Sing, for a max of fifteen years.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 354: They could keep me until I had served my max. And my max was life.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

5. (Can./US) a maximum security jail; thus max rat, an inmate of such an institution; also attrib.

1968		in ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 144: Back to West Street max [i.e. a federal jail] for a couple of weeks, then Lewisburg or Atlanta.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 279: Normally in a ‘max’ there would be a dozen badmouthing creeps doing the same job.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 138: When you get to the max joints, you get guys that are doing life.
2000		T. Fontana ‘A Cock and Balls Story’ Oz ser. 4 ep. 1 [TV script] In a lot of other maxes they give the dinks in solitary one hour a day rec time.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘The kind of precise planning and tactical execution that your average max rat is nowhere near capable of’.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 37: He had gotten kicked upstairs to a max prison.

6. (US campus) the highest level or degree.

1976

Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 4: the max – greatest degree.

7. (drugs) gamma hydroxy butyrate, GBH, dissolved in water and mixed with amphetamines.

2001

ONDCP Street Terms 14: Max — Gamma hydroxybutyrate dissolved in water and mixed with amphetamines.