slop, n.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

slop n.²

[SE slop, a loose outer garment]

(UK prison ) a form of smock, in easily distinguishable colours, worn by prisoners on work parties; also attrib.

1821		Sir W. Scott Kenilworth I 56: This purse has all that is left of as round a sum as a man would wish to carry in his slop-pouch.
1865		T. Archer Pauper, Thief and Convict 227: The regulation [prison] dress consists of cord trousers, a blue ‘slop,’ or coarse frock of blue striped with white, and a light blue striped cap.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 45: This was the suit — a pair of moleskin trousers stamped all over with staring red ‘Ps,’ a jacket ditto, a blue ‘slop’ striped with red, a black japanned hat adorned in the same manner.
1882		Dundee Courier 18 Aug. 7/4: Instead of a slop and trousers of white duck [...] the authorities [...] had ordered us slop and trousers of towelling stuff.
1890		Sporting Times 12 Apr. 2/2: [His] father was a slop linendraper in an unfashionable part of the town.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 78: That abominable ‘slop,’ or smock, of blue material with thick, red stripes that we all wore at labour.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 24: I shudder involuntarily as the red-and-black striped over-jacket, or slop, blazons its meaning on my mind.

slop-made (adj.) [synon. with SE slop-built]

(Aus.) disjointed; of clothes, badly tailored; also in fig. use; thus slop-suit, a badly tailored suit; slop-tailor, a second-rate tailor.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 May 9/1: We mention this person, because what happened to him might happen to anybody who wears cheap, slop-made clothes and goes to Billy Emerson’s.
1890		‘’Arry on the Sincerest Form of Flattery’ in Punch 20 Sept. 144/2: These jossers / [...] / ’Ave about as much ‘fit’ in their ‘slang’ as a slop-tailor’s six-and-six bags.
1890		A.J. Vogan Black Police 117: A dark, elderly man, dressed in a ‘slop’-made grey suit.
1902		Manchester Courier 27 Sept. 8/5: He [...] drops his threadbare kilt and comes south ina slop suit to instruct the English.
1905		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Oct. 10/1: The young innocent down for the Cup in a slop suit containing his year’s savings has already appeared in Melbourne, and the spieler, the confidence man, and the gun are on his track.
1908		E.S. Sorenson Quinton’s Rouseabout and other Stories 84: [T]he third belonged to a thievin’, slop-made scoundrel named Noel Crocker.

slop merchant (n.)

a dealer in (second-hand) clothes.

[1815		Tradesman 14 431/1: English bankrupts [...] AARON , A. and MICHAEL , S. Deal , slop sellers].
1818		Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide 177: East Smithfield (Upper) [...] 90 Levy, Moses, Slop merchant.
1819		‘Miching Mallecho, Esq’ [P.B. Shelley] Peter Bell the Third part Second line 92: [H]e did appear / Like a slop-merchant from Wapping .
1863		M & F. Byrne Memoirs of Miles Byrne 383: To remedy this defect of the slop merchant [...] O’Connor gave me his own jacket and trowsers.
1879		London Life 30 Aug. 3/1: [R]oystering revellers of every complexion, from the captain of a lugger to a stinking bargee, and from a slop merchant to a touting lubber.