Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. general term of abuse.

1612		L. de Mayerne [trans.] The generall historie of Spaine 343: It is more to be feared, thou wilt be called the son of a whore: for no man will call thee the fonne of a traytor.
1613		Beaumont & Fletcher Coxcomb I iv: They had no mothers; they are the sons of bitches.
1627		Middleton A faire quarrell n.p.: Capt. Y’are a foule mouthd fellow, Colo. Foule mouth’d I will be, th’art the son of a whore.
1630		T. Randolph Muses’ Looking-Glass III iii: Daggs and Pistolls! To bite his thumb at me! Weare I a sword to see men bite their thumbs? Rapiers and Daggers! – He is the sonne of a Whore.
1674		Rochester ‘Tunbridge Wells’ in Works (1999) 52: God damn me, Madam, I’m the Son of a Whore, / If in my Life I saw the like before!
1676		Proc. Old Bailey 5 Apr. n.p.: The Prisoner then told him, He was a Son of a Bitch, and he had nothing to say to him [...] when he approached near, he said, You Son of a Bitch, get you gone, or I will split your Brains with a Tile.
1676		A Newgate ex-prisoner A Warning for House-Keepers 6: When that we come to Tyburn / For going upon the Budge / There stands Jack Catch that son of a w---- / that owes us all a grudge.
1677		Behn Rover IV i: I know I’ve done some mischief, but I’m so dull a Puppy, that I am the Son of a Whore, if I know how.
1680		T. Betterton Match in Newgate V iii: Was there ever such a chicken-hearted Son of a Whore?
1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 3: Deevil tauke dee for a Bish, you Son of a Whore.
1696		G. Granville She-Gallants II i: If a Man calls me Son of a Whore, Begad I always take it for a mark of familiarity and kindness.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 67: You old surfeited Son of a B—h.
1722		A. Ramsay ‘The Chamaeleon’ Fables and Tales 23: Ye lied. And ye’re the Son of a Whore.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 121: The Devil confound you and your Mumpish Money too, you Mumping Son of a Mumping .
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 33: D--n your sodomitical Sons of B---hes Heads, said Dalton.
1730		Proceedings at Sessions (City of London) Dec. 11/1: The Letter being as follows, To James Leicester, [...] You miserly Son of a Bitch, as soon as you get this, lay 5l. at the Back-door of the Sign of the Anchor.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 354: Mr. Cabbage, a mischievous Son of a B--ch! peep’d thro’ the Key-hole.
1744		Bog-House and Glass-Window Misc. 37: There’s none beshits the Wall but Sons of B--ches. / May the French Pox, and the Devil take them all.
1751		Proceedings at Assizes of Peace, Oyer and Terminer (Surrey) 29: Carr said to me, you son of a bitch, why don’t you push up?
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans IV 99: She, with much emotion, thus addressed him; ‘The d---l do for us both, but I’ll be my glass with you, for, bl-st your corner cupboards, you son of a b---h, I have a shilling in my pocket as well as you have.’.
1759		J. Townley High Life Below Stairs II i: phi.: He’s a queer Son of a —. kit.: Oh, I know him; he’s one of your sneaking half-bred Fellows.
1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 2: I am a bunting w---e and thou art a dirty son of a b---h.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 70: Son of an ugly squinting bitch, / Pray who the pox made you a witch?
1767		J. O’Keeffe The She-Gallant 2: An ould son of a whore that has one leg already in the grave.
1776		Trial of Maha Rajah Nundocomar II 7/2: Mr. Fowke, hearing this, took up a book, and cried out G-d d--n you, you son of a bitch!
1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 18-25 Aug. n.p.: The Englishman stands by and calls him Sc—h s—n of a b—h.
1786		C. Morris ‘Billy’s Too Young to Drive Us’ Collection of Songs (1788) 13: I believe from my soul, he’s a son of a whore.
1787		Adventures of Jonathan Corncob 78: You are a Judas, and a d---d son of a b---, you know you are.
1795		‘A Peep into a Whiskey-Shop’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 519: [I] first call’d him a blood of a whore.
1798		J. Gillray ‘John Bull taking a Luncheon; – or – British Cooks, cramming Old Grumble-Gizzard, with Bonne-Chère’ 24 Oct. [cartoon] What! more Frigasees? – why you sons o’ bitches, you.
1805		Account of the Trial of the Jews 3: Damn your eyes, you son of a bitch.
1809		Horry & Weems Life of General F. Marion (1816) 35: An ugly, cross, knock-knee’d hook-nosed son of a b-t-h!
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 221: A dev’lish black ill looking son of a bitch .
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 306: If I ever get astride the back of such another harum scarum son of a bitch again.
1825		Comical Hist. of the King and the Cobbler 34: ‘They’re coming!’ he cried out, ‘cock the piece, ye sumph.’.
1827		London Standard 17 Aug. 4/2: One that wouild be a pimp [...] but is nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 269: Mark my words, you burgoo-eating, pea-soup-swilling, trouser scrubbing son of a bitch!
1836		Leeds Intelligencer 23 Apr. n.p.: For sumphs such as Morpeth no man cares a fig.
1840		R.H. Dana Two Years before the Mast (1992) 103: He was not the man to call a sailor a son of a b—h.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 Sept. 3/1: Bungo called him a d—d Welch son of a female puppy.
1850		W.C. Hall ‘Mike Hooter’s Bar Story’ Spirit of the Times 26 Jan. (N.Y.) 581: He scolded an’ called ’em some o’ the hardest names you ever hearn (sich as ‘son-of-er b--h,’ an’ sich like) [...] You’d er thought he’d er knock’d the hine sights off’n every bitch’s son of ’em!
1855		‘Crossing the Plains’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 40: Let’s buy him out, the lousy son of a bitch.
1865		in T.P. Lowry Stories the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell (1994) 41: Callin him ‘a damn big mouth son of a bitch’.
1866		Stirling Obs. 5 July 6/3: ‘They’re coming! they’re coming,’ he cried; ‘cock the piece, ye sumph’.
1867		G.W. Harris Sut Lovingood’s Yarns 297: Yu durn’d yaller son ove a b---h, I’ll break yer holt.
1870		E. Greey Queen’s Sailors I 246: I’ll have you flogged over the breech of a gun, you son of a dog!
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 99: ‘Let’s fight the d—d sons of b—s,’ cried a voice which I recognized as belonging to an agent for one of the stage lines.
1880		Caldwell Post 10 June in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 247: He replied, ‘Yes, you son-of-a-b---h.’.
1881		Manchester Courier 25 June 5: A Texas Mother-In-Law [addressing a policeman] Wanted to amperate my jaw, the little brassy whelp! [...] You had better find that son or thar’ll be music.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 83: You throwed that race, you s— of the b— , and I am going to lick you for it.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 26 Oct. 3/3: What right does that son of a hurry to insinivate in that blasted way about my honour?
1895		Mirror of Life 17 Aug. 11/4: [US speaker] ‘I found myself assailed from all quarters as “a mean son of a b—h”’.
1899		in W.B. Gatewood Smoked Yankees (1971) 171: The prosecuting attorney [...] referred to them as that yellow man or that black s—of b—.
1900		C.J.C. Hyne Filibusters 267: Now you turn to, you-son-of-a-dog, [...] and dont you try any of your nasty greaser tricks on me, or by the living whiskers, youll get hurt.
1902		in H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 3: The unnamed hero of Owen Wister’s The Virginian does not mind it when his friend Steve affectionately calls him a ‘son-of-a-______’ (the dash is in the original, 1902), but when the bad man, Trampas, addresses him this way, he draws his pistol and produces the immortal reply: ‘When you call me that, smile!’.
1907		N.Z. Truth 26 Jan. 6/4: The brainless sumph went into the House of Parliament.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 373: son of a big-shoe, n. phr. A playful or facetious contortion of ‘son of a bitch, you’.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 34: Sons of bitches! cried Mr Dedalus.
c.1920		‘The Winnipeg Whore’ in Bold (1979) 241: Up jumps the bugger-boys and the sons of the bitches.
1927		E. Pound letter 9 Nov. in Paige (1971) 214: I shd. like to protect Fenollosa from sonzofbitches like — [...] Naturally any sonvbitch who knows a little Nipponese can jump on it.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 86: ‘Come on you sons o’ lidy dawgs! Chorust, please!’.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 86: ‘Come on you sons o’ lidy dawgs! Chorust, please!’.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 57: Buckshot. I shoot the sonabitch.
1930		D. Ahearn Confessions of a Gunman 73: If he is a Jew, you call him an Irish son of a bitch; and if he is an Irishman, you call him a Jew bastard.
1932		(con. 1919) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 584: I think I’ll cable the sonsobitches and tell them I’ve resigned.
1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 241: Sonnomo bitzah you! I fix! [Ibid.] 369: Goy, sonn’va bitch! Goy sonn’vabitch! Leo sonn’vabitch!
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 3: Get out the dogs [...] and run them sons of bitches down.
1937		Jennings & Madge May the Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 3:64: So we crossed the road, as we went I heard the tall man shout: ‘You wasn’t there, that’s why you don’t raise your hat you son of a bitch.’.
1938		M. Rand ‘Clip-Joint Chisellers’ in Ten Story Gang Aug. 🌐 Here I’ve been taking care of that damned Blinkie guy [...] and the son has been cutting in on me.
1939		P. Di Donato Christ in Concrete 11: The Lean [...] spat furiously. ‘Sons of two-legged dogs ...’ [Ibid.] 235: Goddamn-damn sonofabastarddd I said brick on the hoist – not tile! Brick you dago screwball!
c.1940		‘Christopher Columbo’ in Bold (1979) 52: That masturbating, fornicating / Sonofabitch Columbo.
1940		M. Levin Citizens 141: If he hadn’t had to labor like a sonofabee twelve hours a day all his life he’d have read more books.
1941		F. Swados House of Fury (1959) 158: I’d like to get my hands on those stinking white sons a bitches. [Ibid.] 168: Come out, you dirty sonovabitch!
1941		A. Mendes ‘Afternoon in Trinidad’ in Lehmann Penguin New Writing No. 6 76: You goin’ let he bring that sonuvabitch heah?
1942		G. Kersh Nine Lives Bill Nelson 35: Address me as Corporal, you yellow-bellied son of a fat-faced dog!
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Half-Size Homicide’ in Speed Detective Nov. 🌐 You lousy son, I was afraid you’d croaked!
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 232: Git up from there you no-piano-playin’ son of a bitch, I got it.
1946		Dundee Courier 21 May 3/5: Commander king [...] denied that he had called the ratings ‘sons of bitches’ or ‘coolies’.
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 27: I can’t stand that sonuvabitch.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 10: That Judge, that damn white-haired son-of-a-bitch.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 153: Well, let me say this much: I hope you get the sons.
1956		J. Blake letter 23 Sept. in Joint (1972) 92: I wanted to [...] show them what a cultured sonbitch I really am.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 236: Whoo! That sonumbitch!
1959		H. Salisbury Shook-Up Generation (1961) 10: What did you expect from the sons-of-bitches?
1965		C. Himes Rage in Harlem (1969) 58: You’re the son of a bitch who robbed me last night.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 76: You nogood sonuvabitch.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 78: If you’re a sonovabitch you’re a sonovabitch!
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 69: Oh you sonofabitch [...] you hit me!
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 67: How do I get this big sunabitch back on track?
1971		B. Moyers Listening to America 99: They know you’re a sonuvabitch.
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 43: You’re a lippy son of a bitch but you’re a good-looking son of a bitch.
1972		(con. 1952) R. Kahn Boys of Summer 150: ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘I left your son of a buck of a book on the fucking train’.
1973		M. Scorsese Mean Streets [film script] 95: Answer me, you sonofabitch!
1973		Tharunka (Sydney) 8 Nov. 28/2: ‘[G]ive me a drag at least you roach-eating son of a bitch’.
1977		Maledicta 1 (Summer) 10: Consider: bastard, son-of-a-bitch (the older son-of-a-whore or whoreson); also son-of-a-bitch-of-a-bastard, which moves the insult up one further generation.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 27: Rocco, you sombitch.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 295: Bone was one lucky sumbitch.
1980		J.F. Kennedy in Hook & Kahn Book of Insults and Irreverent Quotations n.p.: I did not write S.O.B. on the Rostow document ... I didn’t think Diefenbaker was a son of a bitch. I thought he was a prick [R].
1983		S. King Christine 344: He doesn’t know what’s going on. Poor busted-luck sonofawhore.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 213: So Rialto delivered her to this Roger Twelvetrees. She recognized the sumbitch.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 186: Trying to find the sonofabitch who had sold him the bad bullets.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 118: If that sonofawhore didn’t make two thousand [...] dollars that winter, I’ll smile n kiss a pig.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 160: Goddamn lyin’ sumbitch Cuban!
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 148: Well, sir, y’jus’ sit the sumbitches down and ask ’em if they did it.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 285: ‘Fill your hand you sonofabitch’, the Duke drawls.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Travel 9 Jan. 5: They hate losing and they say so. ‘Sonofabitch mother-humping low-down goddam bastard’ was one parting shot from a vanquished opponent.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 85: Yes, it’s true. I fucken love love the fucken sonovabitch!
2010		K. Richards Life 67: Loads of flash little sons of bitches would come down [...] to take the piss out of the art school students.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 142: ‘I’ll handle it’ [...] ‘You son of a bitch [...] Not without me’.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] I see promise in the sombitch [...] I can make this asshole come good.
2014		M. Mellon ‘Death of a One-Percenter’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] ‘You’re a guilty, greedy sumbitch who killed his own father’.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 9: Sonofabitch, he was thinking. Smartass sonofabitch.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 32: ‘I can’t live with myself while that son of a bitch is on this side of the dirt’.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 33: Now the slick city sumbitch was too big to help old friends.

2. (Aus.) a moustache, as worn by cattle-buyers and wool inspectors.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 69: son of a bitch: A moustache and imperial whiskers favoured by cattle-buyers and wool inspectors in the 1890s. Obs.

3. (US) a stew.

1915

H.E. Rollins ‘A West Texas Word List’ in DN IV:iii 229: son-of-a-bitch, n. A kind of stew composed of vegetables and meats, of which Texas cowmen are very fond. It has no other name.

4. an affectionate term of address; also used self-reflexively.

1847		Wilmington Jrnl (MC) 6 Aug. 1/3: ‘Oh, you little shining son o’ bitches! walk into your Mas’ Johnny’s pocket and jingle so’.
1925		J. Stevens ‘Logger Talk’ in AS I:3 138–9: ‘Son-of-a-bitch’ has become a harmless phrase in the woods here, and the logger is always astonished when a newly-arrived Tennesseean or Arkansan resents the phrase being added to a friendly greeting.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 30: Strangler! [...] You old son of a bitch!
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act I: Here’s the old son of a bitch!
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 62: You’re a good old sonofabitch.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 44: You old sonumbitch you finally got on that road.
1964		L. Nkosi Rhythm of Violence I i: You’re just a sensitive son-a-fa-bitch!
1970		E. Tidyman Shaft 38: He was one tough sonofabitch.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 520: Holy Joe, boys! Ain’t I some glad sumbitch to see you guys!
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 3: Among loggers in the Pacific Northwest, son of a bitch long ago became a harmless term, so that one woodsman might greet another with, ‘Hi, you red-eyed son-of-a-bitch!’ (Amer. Speech, 12/25).
1998		D. Hecht Skull Session 430: You are a very, very fortunate son of a bitch.

5. something or someone exceptional.

1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 177: But if so be that son of a bitch of a tree hadn’t come athwart my weather-bow, d’ye see, I’ll be damned if I hadn’t snapt his main-yard in the slings.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 250: You’re a son of a bitch of a mucker.
1939		J. Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath (1951) 225: They’s a big son-of-a-bitch of a peach orchard.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 36: He [...] was a son of a bitch for finding the nearest bar.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 750: The crazy son of a bitch.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Syndicate (1998) 76: I looked out on that big sonofabitch of a sea.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 124: Your layout is a sonuvabitch.
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 3: Billy Clyde Puckett, the humminest sumbitch that ever carried a football [Ibid.] 105: [of a woman] Shake said, ‘You think I’m not about half in love with that sumbitch?’ ‘Always were,’ I said. Shake said, ‘She's the strongest sumbitch I ever knew’ .
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 357: Come the dinner rush, he was one hard-laboring sonofabitch.

6. a thing, ‘it’.

1944		A. Miller Situation Normal 83: I’m inside a M4 and the sumbitch won’t shift to second.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 26: We been ridin this sonofabitch since des Moines.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 85: He knew every goddam strip of chrome and every bolt and nut on the sonofabitch.
1969		R.M. Stern Brood of Eagles (1976) 269: Open, you son of a BITCH! OPEN!
1977		B. Jackson Killing Time 195: The very goddamned day that something goes wrong they’ll bust you right out of that sonofabitch and throw you right back in that barracks.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 127: The Japanese were dug in all over that son-of-a-bitch.
1998		D. Hecht Skull Session 323: He’d better crack this son of a bitch soon.
1999		Indep. 16 Aug. 16: You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Mag. 9 Apr. 16: Plug the sonofabitch in!
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 213: ‘You know the car?’ [...] ‘I know it. I restored the sonofabitch myself.’.
2009		N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] I cracked open the beer [...] and downed that sonofabitch in three seconds flat.