Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to die.

1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 132: If we don’t get her to a doctor in 3 minutes she’ll kick off.
1912		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 52: He told a friend that his sweetheart had kicked off and he was in mourning.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 61: That’s the only thing that scares me in the whole goddam business. I’d hate to die o’ sickness . . . an’ they say another kid’s kicked off with that—what d’they call it?—menegitis.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 186: Silk Freeman [...] was kicking off in a bedbuggy hospital.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 7: My old man kicked off because his brains were muscle-bound.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 39: Maybe the mark they’d mugged had kicked off. In that case there’d be a murder rap hanging over him.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 23: Everyone wondered how long it would be before he kicked off and left all his money to her.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 297: ‘She’ll be good for a million easy, when she kicks off.’ For the archdiocese is what he meant.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 65: He kicked off of a heart attack in his room.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 216: I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t about to let myself kick off.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 383: Jomo [...] coonvulsed and kicked off.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 33: All the old-timers had either kicked off, been sent to the bin, or retired.

2. (US) to kill.

1929

(con. WWI) J.B. Wharton Squad 140: An’ the few that got underground got kicked off by machine-guns when they came out later.

3. to leave.

1918		Aussie (France) 4 Apr. 2/1: ‘How d’yer spell it?’ he asked. ‘Twice nothing, an f f and an off umph,’ explained the D.R., as he kicked off hurriedly and dashed for the horizon.
1927		K. Nicholson Barker II i: Well, if I was the Colonel, I’d feel like kickin’ off myself.
1943		J. Lees-Milne Ancestral Voices diary 5 Dec. (1975) 279: [She] is certain that were it not for Roosevelt, they [i.e. Americans] would kick off.
1970		(con. 1928) Gaddis & Long Panzram (2002) 111: I may leave here any time [...] I want to write it [i.e. a life story] out before I kick off.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 35: I could easily take on another twenty [drivers] tomorrow. But my lot’d just kick off, wouldn’t they.

4. to attack, to fight; often as kick it off.

1981		E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 52: Ah wanna kick off in Miles’s ass. He think he’s somepin’ an’ he ain’t shit.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 19: Kick it off with me and after I get done cripplin’ ya I’ll feel bad for at least five, six minutes.
2004		B. Parris Making of a Legionnaire 24: [T]here was something about him, masked by the pleasant façade, which indicated he could and would kick off if he needed to .
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 12: In one lesson the Hindus and the Muslims kicked off big time.
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 169: The fiery fellows who [would] kick off at me.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 376: Cian [...] said, ‘It’s all kicking off in town’.

5. to argue, to shout, to be aggressive.

2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 21: It was just when we got to about 14, 15 we all started kicking off on each others — girls, music, all the usual things.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 49: You should go in and kick off until somebody listens to you.
2011		G. Knight Hood Rat 159: Lewisham and Southwark [are] where it’s been really kicking off. Those two are much worse now than Hackney’s ever been.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 3: She kicked off, causing a bit ay a scene.