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City in Sl. (1995) 46: An utterly fallen woman, especially a lower-class one, is an alley cat who, following the metaphor, roams back alleys.at alley cat, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 46: An utterly fallen woman, especially a lower-class one, is an alley cat who, following the metaphor, roams back alleys. (con. late 19C) City in Sl. (1995) 46: An utterly fallen woman [...] was less often called an alley bat, the bat being a prostitute who works the street by night.at alley bat (n.) under alley, n.1
(ref. to 1930s) City in Sl. (1995) 41: The main street in hobo talk was sometimes the big alley or the main alley. Each term was an image of Main Street and other city streets in the eyes of homeless men.at big alley (n.) under alley, n.1
City in Sl. (1995) 46: By the 1920s Irish confetti [i.e. bricks] was also known as alley apples, referring similarly to violent lower-class behavior associated with brawls in alleys and with back-alley ways of life.at alley apple (n.) under alley, n.1
(ref. to 1930s) City in Sl. (1995) 46: [A prostitute’s] male companion in the 1930s might have been called an alley rat, a low criminal who lured or forced victims into alleys and robbed them.at alley rat (n.) under alley, n.1
City in Sl. (1995) 77: A special variety of the big spender was the (big) butter-and-egg man. He was a national social type, one of those out-of-town businessmen who showered night clubs with money. He always seemed to be from the Middle West and rich from a prosperous dairy business.at butter-and-egg man, n.
(ref. to 1880s) City in Sl. (1995) 221: By the 1880s a portmanteau Astorbilt had appeared to generic service for the whole crowd on Fifth Avenue [...] Astorbilt [...] evoked a complete social caricature of the rich, haughty, and pretentious social set.at Astorbilt, n.
(ref. to 1850s) City in Sl. (1995) 221: The long forgotten [...] slang name for residents of the street, Fifth Avenoodles, or just Avenoodles, appeared by the 1850s.at Avenoodles, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 43: Much of his [i.e. Sinclair Lewis’s] fictional placenames and personal names (e.g., Babbitt) entered slang in the 1920s as popular labels of their types.at babbitt, n.
(ref. to 1930s) City in Sl. (1995) 45: Back street [...] has been long used to label unacceptable people and behavior. A mistress was once disparaged as a back-street wife.at back-street wife (n.) under back, adj.2
City in Sl. (1995) 68: The theatrical dancers Irene and Vernon Castle translated, muted and popularised black and Barbary Coast (San Francisco) dancing styles for the white middle-classes.at Barbary Coast, n.
(ref. to 1930s) City in Sl. (1995) 46: An utterly fallen woman [...] was less often called an alley bat, the bat being a prostitute who works the street by night.at bat, n.1
City in Sl. (1995) 69: This image is certainly evoked of a flapper dancing the Charleston, usually paired side-by-side with her jellybean, boyfriend, sheik, or jazz bo.at jelly bean, n.
(ref. to 1940s) City in Sl. (1995) 40: A variant in 1940s black speech was to beat the rocks, ‘to walk on the sidewalk’.at beat the rocks (v.) under beat, v.
City in Sl. (1995) 77: In 1920s nightclub parlance a big spender was also known as a live one.at big spender (n.) under big, adj.
City in Sl. (1995) 72: Blind pig was first recorded in 1887; blind pigger, the proprietor, was in use by 1894.at blind-pigger, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 72: The old terms blind tiger and blind pig were revived for humorous use during Prohibition and New Yorkers applied them to any speakeasy.at blind tiger, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 72: The old terms blind tiger and blind pig were revived for humorous use during Prohibition and New Yorkers applied them to any speakeasy.at blind pig, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 67: In the slang of the day, these affairs were called rackets, blow outs, or hops.at blow-out, n.1
(ref. to mid-late 19C) City in Sl. (1995) 224: Mrs. Astor’s crowd named the upcoming swells the Bouncers.at bouncer, n.1
City in Sl. (1995) 71: The plain English box [...] has long been used in American slang for a night club or dance hall.at box, n.1
City in Sl. (1995) 40: To hit the bricks, one of the more enduring variations, has had several meanings. The phrase has meant to [...] be released from prison, to go on strike, and to walk the streets all night because of homelessness.at hit the bricks (v.) under bricks, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 40: To enter on the street and to walk on the sidewalk, especially when looking for something to do, in the logic of slang, is to hit, to pad, to pound, or to beat the bricks, the pavement, or sometimes the macadam.at beat the bricks (v.) under bricks, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 39: The city street — or more exactly the sidewalk — was symbolized in urban vernaculars of itinerants by the synecdoches bricks, pavement, and very slangily, rocks.at bricks, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 40: To be on the pavement, on the sidewalks, or on the street meant to hustle, especially as a prostitute.at on the bricks under bricks, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 40: Merely to press the bricks, however, is to stand loafing in the streets.at press the bricks (v.) under bricks, n.
(ref. to 1915) City in Sl. (1995) 88: About 1915 the hobble-skirt streetcars used in New York were called Broadway battleships.at Broadway battleship (n.) under Broadway, n.
(ref. to 1870s) City in Sl. (1995) 225: Brownstoner became an epithet in the 1870s for a well-to-do person, especially a striver of the merchant class. Brownstone also modified things, brownstone club for a private club or brownstone vote for the political inclinations of the parvenu class.at brownstone, n.
City in Sl. (1995) 73: Such places, also known as cab joints or steer joints, sometimes paid cab drivers, known as steerers or cappers, to bring them victims.at capper, n.1
(con. 1890s) City in Sl. (1995) 118: New York’s old aristocracy [...] mostly lived [...] in deep, dark, cool, cave-like mansions of grey stone and white marble. Wags, probably also by about 1890, were calling them cave dwellers, a term used for the older nobs down to the 1930s.at cave dweller (n.) under cave, n.1
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