Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to begin; to start work on, to turn one’s attention to.

1884		‘Mark Twain’ Letters to His Publishers 14 Apr. (1967) 173: Get at your canvassing early, and drive it with all your might.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 99: Now, the stuff we want to get at to-night is the poetry.

2. to attack, usu. verbally.

1879		London Life 14 June 6/1: A clever detective who is desirous of getting divorce evidence, well knows that it is advisable [...] to ‘get at,’ [...] the maid of the lady suspected.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 14/2: Teemer’s account is that he was ‘got at’ […] [He] said ‘he had been betrayed by his friends, who put him in a craft they knew would be waterlogged, and told him to win.’.
1890		Sporting Times 15 Feb. 1/5: My relations with Foreign Powers are of a friendly description — that is to say, we don’t want to get at them, and they are frightened to touch us.
1900		H. Lawson ‘Joe Wilson’s Courtship’ in Roderick (1972) 540: He seemed to reckon that I was a gone case now; but, as he didn’t say so, I had no way of getting at him.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:3 114: You’re trying to get at me! Now, stop it, before I lose my temper!
1924		Harrisburgh Teleg. (PA) 19 Aug. 3/2: ‘You’ve licked me at every turn, but I’m in Oxford again on the quiet, just to see if I can’t get at you again somehow’.
1929		J.B. Booth London Town 156: Having satisfied himself that he was not being ‘got at’.
1946		(con. 1914) B. Marshall George Brown’s Schooldays 164: Not that the Headmaster thought that old Smiggot-Tromp had been trying to get at him.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 285: ’E’s itching to get at somebody.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene ii: I never try an’ get at yer.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 47: ‘Stop getting at me,’ said Mayo. Angry she lost her slight Irish accent.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 109: I’m not getting at you, Dennis. I’m just concerned.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 20 Feb. 25: Amie’s mother withdrew her daughter from school because she was being ‘got at’ again.

3. to tease, to banter.

1888		‘’Arry on Marriage’ in Punch 29 Sept. 156/1: You’ve ’eard ’Arry was ’ooked after all, and engaged to old Suddlewig’s gal? / Come now! who are yer gettin’ at, carn’t yer?
1963		‘Nino Culotta’ Gone Fishin’ 179: Something smells. [...] I think we’re bein’ got at.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 13: Malcolm then starts gettin at Liam, but gently like.

4. to corrupt, to bribe, to tamper with; thus got at, bribed, corrupted, subverted.

1869		Man about Town 18 Sept. 2/3: [T]he favourite has been ‘got at’ and ‘doctored’.
1871		Sat. Rev. (London) 9 Sept. n.p.: It is quite clear that some of the foreign working men have been got at [F&H].
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 May 4/1: Not that any one would try to ‘get at’ a jury, not even in Bathhurst!
1883		H. Smart Hard Lines II 260: He avowed frankly that in his opinion the horse had been, in racing parlance, ‘got at’.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 167: How my man was got at I never found out; but he was a most ungrateful toad.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 9 Sept. 6/4: I watched all the pariculars in your paper about Cloister. I believe he was ‘got at’.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 224: There were very few ruling bodies he couldn’t ‘get at’, in the least pleasant sense of the term.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Nov. 1/1: A rubbed-out jockey threatens to blow the gaff [and] while beery he has already mentioned several ‘who have got at him’.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 178: The kid [...] realised that Bingo, being in a position to get at him, had better be conciliated.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 152: We got-at the doctor in the hospital and gave him some money in case he said Nick died from the beating.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 69: I reckon we been got at.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 25: I think it’s totally un-Aboriginal and this is again how we are being got at by whites.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 20: He told me she’d been got at by a pack of ‘Daphnes’.

5. to hint, to imply; usu. in phr. what are you getting at?

1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 34: ‘Straight,’ said Billy, ‘I’ll sport ye one . . . No kid, I will.’ ‘Garn,’ said Lizerunt once more. ‘Wot ye gittin’ at now?’.
1899		D. Belasco Naughty Anthony II in Heart of Maryland (1941) 294: What are you getting at? What do you refer to when you call me the husband?
1911		Gem 7 Oct. 12: Does anybody know what he’s getting at?
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 254: Here, what’s the game? Watchew getting at?
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 122: I don’t wanter be a grape on the business, but what’s Clive gettin’ at? Won’t somebody drum me?
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 66: I just don’t know what you’re getting at, Francee.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene x: Wass ’e gettin’ at?
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 59: There’s not a person can even understand what he’s getting at.
1997		K. Bellamy Game, Set and Match 302: [...] what’s she getting at? [...] Is she saying I was only worth a few coins?
2002		Pellegrini & Sarbin Between Fathers and Sons 109: What’s he getting at? Why would he say that about my ball?

6. (Aus.) to engage in sexual relations.

1985

B. Robinson Aussie Bull 13: [T]he same young couple sit close together in passionate embrace on the lounge while the pendulum of a cheap Japanese clock urges - ‘Get-at-her, Get-at-her, Get-at-her!’ .

7. (US campus) to get in touch.

1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 12: Get at me: Call me later.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 get at someone Definition: 1. a greeting to a friend to get in contact.

8. (US black) to invite to fight, thus the challenging excl. get at me!

2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 get at someone Definition: 2. an invitation to fight.
2014		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 7: GET AT ME — aggressive reply to criticism: X: ‘You smell bad.’ Y: ‘Get at me, man.’.