A VOCABULARY OF
CRIMINAL SLANG
Copyrighted, 1914
By LOUIS E. JACKSON
A VOCABULARY OF
CRIMINAL SLANG
WITH
SOME EXAMPLES OF
COMMON USAGES
BY
LOUIS E. JACKSON
Assisted by
C. R. HELLYER, _City Detective Department_
PORTLAND, OREGON
Price, $1.50
DEDICATED TO
T. M. Word
Sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon
A Fearless
and Intelligent Administrator
of a Public Trust.
_INTRODUCTION_
It is not with a view to sensationalism that this little work is
undertaken, but with a sense of helpfulness, of social obligation. It
is submitted for the perusal and study of all those public officers and
professional servants whose responsibilities are such as to bring them
into casual or constant contact with the confirmed criminal classes.
It may fall into the hands of some unfit subjects and thereby
contribute to the propagation of its contents in undesirable quarters.
On the other hand we may consider that publicity is the speediest agent
for the destruction of cankerous moral growths. Perhaps the possession
of such knowledge as is here presented argues a sordidness; but Gordian
knots can be untied only by use of the sword; to have cherries in the
winter a can opener must be used, or to stand eggs on end you must
smash them.
By the very nature of crime its efficient vehicle of transmission is
ephemeral, very ephemeral. The vernacular of twenty-five years ago
is almost oblivion today. So with the future; provided, of course,
that the idiom of the underworld surrender its meaning to the social
layers superimposed upon it. This process can be made effective by
investigation and publicity. When bench and bar, the press, custodians
of law and order and private agencies devoted to the detection,
repression and correction of crime are made familiar with the wiles
and mode of communication of criminals, the latter are rendered less
powerful insofar as the evolved system of guile and wrong-doing are
concerned.
It is noticeably true that our average law officer or advocate is
necessarily a specialist in one or perhaps a few, at most, of the many
recognized branches of professional crime. The limitation is occasioned
in part by prescribed capacity and in part by inexperience or
unfamiliarity with criminals of all types and their methods. Efficiency
in general correctional labor may undoubtedly be promoted by a fuller
understanding of the linguistic acquirements of subjects to be dealt
with in every day practice. It is hoped that the publication of this
vocabulary of criminal terms will render material advantages to the
conscientious workers in this large field.
We are conscious of many errors of omission in the work and we request
the co-operation of all who are interested in its utility. Only the
essential and most pertinent or purely criminal vernacular usages have
been selected from the mystical parlance of professional violators and
their accomplices, for the reason that popular slang is so extensively
comprehended as to make its publication of doubtful value as a new
contribution to our literature.
An analysis of the four hundred and thirty terms included in the
vocabulary reveals the interesting fact that criminal idiom is largely
an ingenious combination of epithet suggested by similitude and a
perverted construction of essential and accidental attributes of things
and powers to imply or express the things and actions themselves.
An occult jargon on its face, yet systematic enough when the key is
acquired.
Some of the terms seem to have been derived by simple partition of
legitimate English words, occasionally with the addition of euphonious
prefix or suffix. As a prime example of the transposition of an
attribute for the thing itself, consider what is perhaps the most
popular slang term in use today in the unregenerate world--“dope,” at
present signifying “news,” “intelligence,” or “meaning.” Originally
this word was derived from opium by partition, with the disguising
consonant “d” prefixed to the accented syllable. Amongst narcotic
habitues the most salient attribute of opium is stimulation of
loquacity, or imaginativeness or of exaggeration. In process of time
any of these powers came to characterize narcotic intoxication; thence
information on any subject was designated “dope.” The “dope sheet,” a
“line of dope,” are natural offshoots of this tendency to transpose
attribute into a new substantive. To philologists this noteworthy
observation should infallibly point out the utter lack of scientific
relation between an artificial sound--or visual--symbol and the thing,
quality or quantity symbolized thereby.
Without previous instruction a person gifted with intuition might
divine the signification of the majority of these terms in vogue by
weighing the context of the sentences in which they are included. Yet
a practical working knowledge of them should be made more available by
frequent reference to a complete list. The sole excuse for criminal
slang is the protection afforded by secrecy, which once destroyed
the slang is forced to die of neglect, though it will naturally be
superseded by evolutionary linguistic devices.
To fraternize with a secret order we must equip ourselves with a
knowledge of the ceremonies and aims as well as the selective means
of the secret fraternists. To combat criminals successfully it is
necessary to understand their complete vehicles of intercommunication,
else the investigator is unqualified to fraternize with them so as to
gain a fuller insight both into their actions and the living motives
concealed behind them. Unquestionably, every term in the vocabulary
is known to some officer of the law; unquestionably, too, every term
contained therein is understood by but very few individuals even
amongst criminals themselves. Therefore it would seem a distinct gain
to become familiar with them all.
Aided by a panoramic view of recorded crime in the last generation we
may roughly divide criminal offenses into the four great departments
of crimes against self, or reflexive crimes against personal character,
which have their fountain head in intemperance and gluttony; crimes
against sex, which have their basis in the emotions flowing out of
lust; crimes against property, fed by the sins of avarice or greed;
and the crimes of violence, growing out of anger. Of these four,
reflexive crimes and crimes of violence are distinctively psychological
and must be left to the individual for corrective solution. Crimes
against property and crimes of sexual depravity constitute the bulk of
costly and troublesome cases which choke the machinery of our legal
tribunals and necessitate a regrettable public tax for maintenance
of penal and detentional institutions. The chronic defectives who
most seriously menace the social body are comprised of prostitutes;
gamblers; nondescriptively larcenous tramps; yeggs; burglars; sneak
thieves; confidence men; dishonest solicitors; promoters and agents;
forgers; merchandise thieves; pickpockets; highway robbers; and
their accessories, the unscrupulous pawnbroker, the unrestrained
liquor dealer, and the drug dispenser. It goes without saying that
the volume and value of business transacted by these latter three
attest the stupendous proportions of the direct losses sustained by
the commonwealth through the misdirected energies of the principal
professional criminal classes.
From an economical standpoint the traffic of professional crime is
stupendous. We are mulcted some four hundred millions of dollars
annually by reason of the criminal element in the nation. A
conservative estimate of the number of active professional criminals of
high and low degree is probably 100,000. We have one uniformed police
officer for every thousand of population, and about one auxiliary
officer per thousand of population in addition. Here are 200,000 more
persons in the non-productive class. Criminal lawyers and criminal
court functionaries contribute another ratio of one to the thousand of
population, making a conservative total of 400,000 engaged in preying
upon and relieving the producers from distress occasioned by crimes
against person and property.
Admitting that the average income of the 300,000 police officers,
lawyers and court officials is about $1,200 per year, we have a
$360,000,000 overhead cost charged against production. The loss
sustained through the peculations of criminals and the cost of
detaining them is not less than another $88,000,000 per year, on
the estimated basis of $882 per year per criminal. A grand total of
$448,000,000!
Suppose the average age of the professional criminal to be 30 years. As
the average financial investment in an individual of that age in the U.
S. is $12,600, his productive capacity should be at least six per cent
on the investment (if possessed of industrial training), plus the cost
of human upkeep; which means a total of about $1,170 per year earning
capacity for the average individual. Or at six per cent interest
alone on the personality investment he represents an annual potential
addition of $757 to the national wealth. Add to this the cost to the
state of detaining him, say an average of $125 per year, and we have
$882 per year per prisoner. The actual loss in interest on criminal
personality investments is about $75,000,000 per 100,000 prisoners per
year; a waste that is perpetuated by the present judicial and penal
system.
Now, the average thief cannot steal $1,170 per year, nor even $757,
when account is taken of time lost in prison. The crux of the situation
seems to lie in the criminal’s lack of training in the useful arts,
together with moral delinquency. So far we have experimented chiefly
with two extremes in penology--employment of convicts for their
exploitation by selfish interests on the one hand, and unemployment
or else employment of such nature as tends to lower the standard of
efficiency of the individual on the other hand. The evolution of labor
unions has suppressed reform that makes for the criminal’s economical
independence; and yet the criminal element is recruited mainly
from the fourth estate. To date the history of penology shows some
development of apprehenders and keepers in the practical side of the
work, but at the prime expense of the apprehended. The producers at
large pay the interest on the debt, whilst the principal is shouldered
by the deficient themselves who are passing it along to the future
generations.
As to the moral aspect of the problem with which the professional
criminal confronts the nation, it must ultimately be determined by
psychology. Intemperance, greed, lust and anger; these are the radical
causes. Economical dependence is the first outgrowth of these known
qualities but unknown quantities.
How are we going to reduce the overshadowing difficulty? By
ostracism? By sterilization? By simple detaining repression without
corresponding elimination of root causes? As for ostracism, folly
flees a grave danger whilst moral courage fortified by intelligence
faces and overcomes it. Ostracism revives and perpetuates caste
divisions of society. Sterilization is as wrong in a larger moral
view as infanticide in a smaller; the theory has emanated from higher
intellectual, moral and spiritual darkness. It solves the criminal
problem like national debt solves the economical problem--saddles a
moral mortgage upon posterity. Detention without conferring assimilable
moral uplift and increased economical efficiency is a parallel for
the fabled delusion of the ostrich. Imprisonment as it obtains today
costs much and produces little or nothing save waste. The maintenance
of delinquents in rotting idleness or at labor which is subsequently
unprofitable to the prisoner from the standpoint of talent and
character development is an unbusiness-like as well as an inhumane
make-shift which reacts upon society like a boomerang.
But it was not the aim to air views on criminology and penology in a
preface, though it has seemed appropriate that the intelligence of
interested men and women should be appealed to, as the widespread use
of the following idioms has a deep significance. If this work achieves
no other result than this it should be regarded as well worth while.
C. R. HELLYER
City Detective Dept., Portland, Ore.
and LOUIS E. JACKSON,
Portland, Oregon, October 3rd, 1914.
* * * * * * * *
Should you find any terms missing from the following vocabulary which
in your opinion should be included in it you will confer a favor by
communicating same to the publisher.
W. H. THORNTON,
872 Brooklyn St., Portland, Ore.
A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang
Alphabetically Arranged
with Practical Examples
of Common Usages
[Illustration]
ADMAN, Noun
Current amongst literary confidence men. A fake advertising solicitor.
See “HUNDRED PER CENT.”
ANGEL, Noun
General usage. A financial backer. Derived from “good thing.”
ARM MAN, Noun
Current amongst “heavyweights.” A strong arm man; a holdup; a highway
robber. See “PUT-EM-UP.”
ARTILLERY, Noun
In general currency. Firearms of any description. See “ROD,” “ROSCOE,”
“SMOKE WAGON.”
B. A., Noun
Current amongst literary confidence men. A book agent who commonly
employs confidence methods for obtaining subscriptions or orders.
BADGE, Noun
Current amongst “hustlers” and the demi-monde. A badger; a blackmailer;
an extortioner. See “SHAKE DOWN.”
BALLY HOO, Noun
Current amongst exhibition and “flat-joint” grafters. A free
entertainment used for a decoy to attract customers. See “READER.”
BANNER, Noun
General currency. Used in the colloquialism “carrying the banner,”
meaning to walk the streets all night or otherwise endure the hardship
of loss of sleep.
BATCH, Noun
General currency. A number; a quantity; a lot; a great many.
BELCH, Noun
In general usage with all grafters. A protest; a complaint. See
“SQUAWK,” “ROAR,” “HOLLER.” Example: “When he blowed his dough he put
up an awful belch.”
BELCH, Verb
Idem Supra. Example: “He cannot stand the gaff without belching.” Also
used to denote the giving of information. See “COME THROUGH.”
BEN, Noun
General usage. An overcoat; derived from Benjamin, in reference to the
biblical coat of many colors.
BENNY, Noun
General usage. A sack coat; derived from Benjamin, some say the
biblical character, while others say the New York manufacturer of men’s
garments.
BENT, Adjective
General usage. Crooked; larcenous. See “TWISTED.” Example: “His kisser
shows that he’s bent.”
BIG TOP, Noun
Current amongst circus grafters and “open-air men.” The large tent used
by circuses; now evolved to include the meeting of the maximum exhibit
possible in any given case. Example: “I’m flopping at the big top,”
i. e., “I am rooming at the biggest hotel in town.”
BIT, Noun
General usage. A portion; a division; a share or a part of anything, as
profits or proceeds of a transaction. Example: “You’re supposed to be
in on anything that comes off, so you’re entitled to your bit.”
BIT, Noun
General usage, particularly amongst grafters who operate on the outside
of the law. A prison sentence. Example: “He did a bit in Joliet.”
Also a share. See “END.” Example: “If you don’t take a chance you’re
entitled to no bit.”
BLOCK, Noun
General usage. A watch. See “SUPER[1],” “TURNIP.” Example: “The wire
rung six blocks in the breaks,” i. e., “The tool (pickpocket) detached
six watches from their rings in the crowded exit.” As a noun it has
another meaning, i. e., a head. See “NOODLE.” Example: “He got his
block sapped,” i. e., struck.
[1] There is no entry for “SUPER” in the text.
BLOOMER, Noun
Current with genteel grafters. An error; a failure. Example: “We framed
wrong and scored a bloomer.”
BLOW, Verb
General usage. To cease; to get away; to lose; to miss something
absent. Examples: “Blow! here comes a bull.” “We blowed some kale that
night” (spent it). “Just as the touch was scored the boob blowed his
poke.” “A shilliber’s work is to cop and blow,” i. e., to take and give
in a gambling, ostensibly winning and losing in good faith from and to
a confederate.
BLOW CARD, Noun
Current amongst gamblers and genteel grafters. Any useless thing or
condition; financial embarrassment; the last card; the final play or
thing in any series. Examples: “Don’t connect with this wop, he is on
the blow card,” i. e., broke. “Pull this one off and call it the blow
card.”
BOOB, Noun
In general usage amongst all sophisticated classes. An inferior in any
specific sense; a victim; an uninitiated person when used by a “gonif.”
Derived from booby.
BOOSTER, Noun
Used by confidential grafters. One who endorses a person, thing or
action of immoral nature either by complementary action or by moral
support; a helper; a confederate.
BOOSTER, Noun
In general currency amongst “gonifs.” A shoplifter; a thief who
operates in merchandise stores in daytime. A “Boost” is an assistance;
“The Boost” is the shoplifting profession.
BREAKS, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. Any place of exit where throngs of people
pour through en stream, as from a theatre, from a convention or other
popular gathering, or from a street or railroad car or from a boat, all
of which afford facilities for the pickpocket to operate under cover
and in the press of unusual excitement. Example: “The guns are rooting
into the swell mob at the Grand Opera breaks.”
BREAK UP, Noun
Current amongst thieves who specialize in plunder or loot. Melted
silver or gold. See “MELT.”
BREEZE, Noun
General usage. Loquacity; guile; “hot air;” “bull con.”
BREEZE, Verb
General usage. To deceive; to beguile; to occupy one’s attention; to
descant loquaciously. Example: “She breezed everybody on the line.”
Also to move on, to leave, to come in or go out. See “BLOW.”
BREECH (britch), Noun
Current amongst pickpockets chiefly. The rear pants pockets, designated
right and left breech, in contradistinction to the front pants pockets,
for which see “KICK.” Example: “Fan his right breech for a leather,”
i. e., “Feel of his right hip pocket for a pocketbook.”
BROAD, Noun
Current amongst genteel grafters chiefly. A female confederate; a
female companion; a woman of loose morals. See “DONY,” “FLUZIE,”
“MUFF[2].” Broad is derived from the far-fetched metaphor of “meal
ticket,” signifying a female provider for a pimp, from the fanciful
correspondence of a meal ticket to a railroad or other ticket, which
latter originally was exclusively used by “gonifs” to indicate
“broad,” or a conductor’s hat check. Also a playing card from the
deck of fifty-two. A “three-card monte man” is a “BROAD SPIELER”;
“Tipping the broads” is riding on a purchased transportation ticket;
“Beating the broads” is corrupting the conductor or other collecting
functionaire of a transportation line.
[2] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
BUCK, Noun
Current generally. A dollar. Example: “They tax you one buck for a room
without a bath at the cheapest hotel in the burg.”
BUFFALO, Noun
General usage in the northern states. A negro. See “DINGE.”
BUFFALO, Verb
General usage. To bluff; to intimidate; to frighten. Example: “The dick
buffaloed him into tipping his plant.”
BUG, Noun
Used by alms beggars. A fearful looking sore artificially produced to
simulate a burn or scald by the use of Spanish blister.
BULL, Noun
General usage. Misrepresentation; a lie; deception. Probably derived
from the financial term bull, which in polite and legal circles
signifies inflation, optimism. See “BREEZE.” Also used to indicate an
officer of the law whose function is to apprehend or arrest, whether a
constable, marshal, sheriff, detective or policeman.
BULL CON, Noun
Supra idem.
BUMP, BUMP OFF, Verb
Current amongst heavyweights and desperate characters chiefly, though
understood by grafters generally. To kill; reflectively it signifies
suicide. Examples: “He bumped himself off when he saw that the game was
up.” “He copped a cuter and got bumped making a get-away.”
BUNCO, Noun
General currency. Deceit. Derived from “BUNCOMBE.”
BUNK, Noun
In general currency. Deceit; ostentation. Derived by corruption of form
while retaining the meaning of “Bunco,” a contraction of buncombe.
Example: “If you fall for this bunk you’re a simp.”
BUNK, Verb
General usage. To employ misrepresentation; to defraud; to cheat; to
establish confidential relations with intent to abuse the influence so
acquired. Example: “The frame-up in the play was to bunk the sucker
with protection and scare team work.”
BURNEYS, Noun
Current amongst “hop-heads,” dope fiends. A catarrh powder containing
an illicit proportion of cocaine, used as a snuff, administered with a
combination detachable rubber and glass blowing tube.
BUZZARD, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. A timid or amateur or low life “gun” who
operates on “molls,” women. Example: “The moll buzzards tore into the
jam at the market house on Saturday night and glommed a batch of pokes.”
BUZZER, Noun
Current mainly in western circles. An officer’s badge or star, the
insignia of authority. Example: “Who are you? says he. For reply I
flashed my buzzer.” Derived, doubtless, from the metal disc toy with
starlike points which revolves by pulling crossed strings which pass
through it.
CAN, Noun
General usage. A place of confinement; a prison; a cell. A practical
metaphor for a receptacle designed to confine or bottle humans. Also a
lavatory, toilet, urinal. Example: “He rumbled and made the can.” See
“CANISTER.”
CAN, Verb
General usage. To discharge; to eliminate. Derived from the prankish
cruelty of tieing a tin can to a dog’s tail, whose effectual purpose
is to get rid of a useless or undesirable object. Example: “He made so
many bad breaks we had to can him.”
CANISTER, Noun
Current chiefly amongst prison habitues. A prison. Also in use amongst
crooks who resort to the use of weapons, denoting a firearm. Example:
“He’ll stick his hands up if you flash the canister.”
CANNON, Noun
General currency. A revolver. In pickpocket parlance it signifies a
pickpocket of indefinite order. See “GUN,” “GONIF.”
CASES, Noun
General usage. Observation; scrutiny; survey. Example: “Keep cases
on his actions and you will learn his motive.” Also an ultimate, a
finality, the last of a series of things or actions. Example: “He
hasn’t turned a trick for so long that he is down to cases.” The term
is derived from gambler’s parlance; in faro bank the recording of
cards turned out of the dealer’s box is denominated “keeping cases,”
whilst the last card to remain in the box is called the “case card.”
“Down to cases” is used to signify that the cards are all dealt and
played; the money or resources at an end.
CASE, Verb
General usage. To watch; to observe; to scrutinise.
CAT HOP, Noun
Current amongst gamblers. See “KITTY HOP.”
CENTURY, Noun
General usage. A hundred; a hundred dollar bill.
CHIP, Noun
Current amongst burglars and store prowlers. A cash-box; a till; a cash
drawer without belling device. A cash receptacle with belling device is
called a “combination chip,” or a “damper,” or a “dinger.” Example: “He
copped a heel on the chip and glommed a century.”
CHIV, Noun
In general use amongst yeggs and rough-neck criminals. A knife; a
sharp-edged tool or weapon. Derived from the French word “chef,” by
reason of a cook’s use of a carving knife, though the French term for
knife is “canif.”
CHIV, Verb
Supra idem. To cut; to slash; used only in regard to an attack upon a
human. Example: “Beware of that geezer that he does not chiv you.”
CHOP, Verb
General usage. To quit; to cease.
CHUMP, Noun
General usage. An unsophisticated individual; a victim; an inferior; an
“angel”; a “captain.” See “JOHN.”
CLATTER, Noun
General usage. A patrol wagon.
CLAW, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. The “tool”; the “jerve”; the “wire”; or
the expert operator in a “gun mob” who lifts the money and valuable
collateral from the victim’s person. Example: “Our mob is working under
one of the speediest claws in the country.”
CLAW, Verb
General usage. To snatch; to appropriate; to annex.
CLEAN, Adjective
General usage. A state of financial embarrassment; exhausted supply of
a given property. Example: “He wasn’t very dirty when he got in town,
but he is thoroughly clean now.”
CLEAN, Verb
General usage. To take all one possesses of a given commodity; to
deplete one’s assets. Example: “He headed in wrong with that bunch and
got cleaned.” Also used by exponents of the art of self-defense to
indicate the infliction of defeat upon an opponent. Example: “He made a
pass at me and I cleaned him in one, two, three.”
CLOUT, Verb
In currency amongst the plunderbund. To purloin any kind of valuables
in any manner.
COME-ON, Noun
General usage. A prospective victim; a “steered” prospect.
COME THROUGH, Verb
General usage. To give up, to deliver, to surrender any secret
information or any material goods demanded. Example: “After I showed
him the situation was in our hands he came through with the dope.”
In pickpocket parlance “to come through” describes a function of one
of the “wire’s” “stalls,” consisting of a frontal attack or sudden
onslaught upon an intended victim with the purpose of bewildering the
latter in order that the “wire” may operate upon the victim from the
rear; or, the relative positions may be reversed, when the “stall”
should “come through” from the rear. Example: “Precede this mark
through the car door, wheel and come through just as he descends the
steps.”
CON, Noun
General usage. A convict; a lie; a misrepresentation. See “BUNK.”
CON, Verb
General usage. To ingratiate; to establish confidential relations. See
“BUNK.”
COP, Noun
General currency. A policeman.
COP, Verb
General usage. See “CLOUT.” Cop is an old Cockney flash-word and
signifies capture; conquer. Example: “Booze and the blowers (women)
cops the lot.”
COPPER, Noun
Current amongst prison habitues. The commutation or good time allowed
prisoners for good behavior. Example: “You grab one month copper off
the first year.”
COSE, Noun
General usage. A five-centpiece. “Cosan” is a ten-centpiece.
CRACK, Verb
General usage. To talk. For example see “EYE FULL.”
CRAB, Noun
General usage. A grouchy, stingy person; of inferior quality in
intellectuality or habits. See “PIKER[3].”
[3] There is no entry for “PIKER” in the text.
CRAB, Verb
General usage. To spoil or ruin or render impossible any plan of
action. Example: “This fink crabbed the play and we went on the nut for
a double sawbuck.”
CRAP, Noun
General usage. Treachery. See “BUNK,” “BULL,” “CON.”
CREEP, Verb
Current amongst prowlers and panel-joint workers. To use stealth; to
crawl.
CREEP, Noun
Current amongst crooked pimps. A creeper, a crawler who searches the
clothes of a victim while the latter is abed with the creep’s paramour.
CROKE, Verb
General usage. Passively it means to die; actively it is used as an
elegant expression for murder. Examples: “He croked himself with
bichloride.” “The copper got croked in the jackpot.”
CRIMPY, Adjective
Used by yeggs principally. Cold, applied to the weather.
CROKER, Noun
General usage. A physician.
CROSSLOTS, Adverb
In use amongst yeggs, hobos and the meandering unemployed.
Cross-country; away from frequented routes of traffic; by star route.
Example: “In the get-away they hammed twenty miles cross lots.”
CROW, Adjective
Current amongst shoplifters and pennyweighters. Poor; mean; trivial;
insignificant; worthless. Example: “There’s a bale of slum in the
joint, but it’s all crow.”
CROWNS, Noun
Used by drug fiends. Same as “BURNEYS.”
CRUSH, Noun
General usage. A forcible entry or exit. Also as verb.
CUT TO THE BREAKS, Verb
Current amongst gamblers and ready-money grafters. Reducing action to
its lowest terms; displaying only the essential. Example: “The mark
stalled to the can, gunned his soft and cut to the breaks,” i. e., “The
victim retired to the lavatory, inspected his bank-roll and separated
the amount required to finance the intended operation.”
CUTER, Noun
Used by gamblers and western criminals. A surprise; a fool; a josh; “a
boob.” For example of first-cited value see “BUMP.”
DAMPER, Noun
Used by prowlers and daylight “heels.” A combination cash drawer or
register. See “CHIP.”
DANGLER, Noun
Current amongst jewelry thieves and those who commit larceny from the
person. A watch fob; an earring; a pendant; any article of jewelry
which swings free at one end.
DEAD ONE, Noun
General usage. One who is useless in any specific case; out of funds.
DERRICK, Noun
Current amongst shoplifters chiefly. A “hoister”; a “lifter”; a
“booster”; an “elevator.” Example: “The boosters are making a plunge
with a derrick ben.” In this sense it is used as an adjective, but can
be transposed for “boosters.”
DICK, Noun
General usage. A detective. See “RICHARD.”
DINGE, Noun
General usage. A negro. See “BUFFALO.”
DIP, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. See “CLAW”; “WIRE”; “JERVE”; “TOOL”;
“GUN”; “CANNON”; “GONIF.” A common term for a pickpocket of any degree.
DISE, Noun
Current amongst store burglars, shoplifters, and box-car thieves or
“RAT WORKERS” mainly. A contraction of merchandise. Loot; plunder;
effects that can readily be disposed of in the market as new goods.
Example: “There’s a mob riding the rattlers between here and the
junction who have a dise plant stashed (cached) in the jungles.”
DONY, Noun
Current amongst pimps and free lovers chiefly. A female member of the
demi-monde. See “HOOKER”; “JANE”; “FILLY”; “MUFF[4].” Derived from the
Hebrew “yoni,” the female sex organ.
[4] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
DOSS, Noun
General currency. A place to sleep; a bed. See “KIP”; “FLOP.” Example:
“Stake me to two-bits to get a doss.” Apparently from the French “je
dors,” I sleep.
DOUBLE, Noun
General usage. A conspiracy to deceive or defraud a victim; the
“double-cross.” Example: “He got the double.”
DUCAT, Noun
Current amongst genteel grafters. A ticket of admission or
transportation. See “BROAD.” Example: “The ducat box was crushed last
night,” i. e., “The ticket office was burglarized.”
DUCK, Verb
General currency. To retire; to leave; to flee; to disappear.
DUKE, Noun
Used by gamblers and genteel grafters. A fist; a hand; glad hand;
a hand in a card game. “Reading the duke” is “fortune-telling by
palmistry”; “tipping your duke” is “betraying your intention”;
“cropping his duke” is reading an opponent’s hand by trickery in a card
game.
DUKIE, Noun
Used by yeggmen and hobos. A hand-out, or donation of cold victuals to
a beggar. See “LUMP.”
DUMMY, Noun
Current amongst yeggmen, hobos and prison habitues. Bread. See “PUNK.”
DUMP, Noun
General usage. A rendezvous; an establishment of any kind; a hangout; a
joint; a meeting place.
DRAG, Noun
General currency. An influence with one in authority; a “pull”; a main
thoroughfare in any community; the main street. See “STEM.” Examples:
“The boys are pivoting on the main drag,” i. e., begging on the street;
“The muffs are cruising on the drag tonight,” i. e., soliciting on the
street. Amongst female impersonators on the stage and men of dual sex
instincts “drag” denotes female attire donned by a male. Example: “All
the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.” Also
an inhalation of smoke, tobacco or opium.
DROP, Noun
General currency. An apprehension in criminal action. See “FALL”;
“SNEEZE”; “RUMBLE”; “TUMBLE.” Also used as a verb to express the action
corresponding to a similar state. Example of the latter: “The tribe
dropped a man in the day’s work,” i. e., lost one by arrest. “We had
to drop a stall for missing too many meets,” i. e., discharged him.
Command or control by reason of advantage in an exigency when shooting
may be expected.
EIGHT DIE CASE, Noun
Current amongst open-air or “sure-thing” grafters. See “FLAT JOINT.” A
glass showcase containing numbered prizes, as jewelry or gewgaws, for
which eight dice are thrown by players, the totality of spots on the
eight dice corresponding with the numbers on the prizes. The secret of
this graft consists in the dealer’s fraudulent counting of the spots
arbitrarily and disarranging them before the victim can finish the
count.
ELBOW, Noun
General usage in cosmopolitan centers. A detective. See “RICHARD”;
“DICK.”
ELEVATOR, Noun
In shoplifter’s and holdup men’s parlance. A lifter; a booster; a
hoister; a “stick-up” man. See “PUT-EM-UP.”
END, Noun
General currency. A share; a portion; a division. See “BIT.”
EYE (The), Noun
General currency amongst long-odds criminals. The Pinkerton Detective
Agency; an operative of the Pinkerton Agency. Example: “Blow this
joint; it’s protected by the Eye.”
EYE FULL, Noun
General usage. The object of scrutiny or of attentive observation. See
“STRETCHING.” Example: “Nix Crackin’! The mark on your left is getting
an eye full.”
FALL, Noun
General currency. An arrest. See “RUMBLE”; “DROP.” Example: “He was
soused when he attempted to pull off the stunt and got a fall.” Used
as a verb, “to fall for” is to be deceived by; to be taken in; to be
influenced.
FALL DOUGH, Noun
Current amongst criminals who operate under clique or fraternal
organization. A fund kept in reserve for protection, to be expended in
procuring legal representation, bail, or bribery of officers or court
functionaries. Example: “No one can join out unless he puts up five
centuries for fall dough.”
FALL GUY, Noun
General currency. A scapegoat; a victim. See “FALL.”
FAN, Verb
In pickpocket parlance. To surreptitiously feel a victim’s pockets, or
inadvertently brush the person for the purpose of locating an object
sought, as pocketbook, watch or weapon. Example: “Fan the pratt for a
poke.”
FIEND, Noun
Used by narcotic habitues chiefly. One addicted to the use of drugs, as
a “hop fiend,” a “dope fiend.”
FILL, Verb
General currency amongst gang criminals. To join a mob, as of guns,
or of confidence men, and thus fill a vacancy in the organization.
Example: “If you know a good man who can make a fill steer him in.”
FILLY, Noun
General usage. A young woman of questionable morals, not necessarily
criminal by choice but potentially so. See “SKIRT”; “JANE”; “MUFF[5].”
[5] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
FINGER, Noun
Current amongst criminals who localize more or less extensively. See
“STOOL[6].” An informer; an investigator for officers. Example: “He got
the push sneezed by mixing with a finger.”
[6] There is no entry for “STOOL” in the text.
FINGER PRINT, Noun
Current amongst confidence crooks who specialize in paper securities or
signed orders for merchandise or service. A signature; an endorsement.
Example: “Put your finger print on this line.” See “JOHN HANCOCK.”
FINK, Noun
Current chiefly in eastern criminal circles. An unreliable confederate
or incompetent sympathizer. See “CRAB”; “LOB.” Example: “We staked him
to a day’s work for a try-out, but he proved to be a fink.”
FISH EYE, Noun
General currency. A diamond. See “PROP.”
FIX, Noun
Used in general criminal parlance. A condition of security where
grafters may operate with impunity. Example: “Don’t pay any attention
to the bulls; it’s a fix.”
FIXER, Noun
General currency. One who acts as go-between for thieves and bribe
takers. Example: “If you get a rumble, send for Jones, the mouthpiece;
he’s a sure-shot fixer and can square anything short of murder.”
FLAGGINGS, Noun
Used by yeggs and hobos. Meat of any description, usually applied to
cold victuals. Example: “If you are not a vegetarian, stay away from
that man’s burg, for flaggings is scarce.”
FLAP, Noun
Current amongst pimps and criminals who are contemptuous of female
values. An opprobrious epithet for loose women. Also employed to
designate the female sex organ.
FLASH, Verb
General currency. To show; to exhibit; to submit an object for
inspection.
FLAT JOINT, Noun
Current amongst open-air sure-thing men who operate at circus
gatherings, fairs, carnivals, any gaming establishment where fortune
is presumed to wait upon skill combined with risk. The “TIVOLI”; the
“SWINGING BALL”; the “SPINDLE”; the “PINCH WHEEL”; the “PADDLES”; the
“SHELLS”; “THREE CARD MONTE”; the “EIGHT DIE CASE”; the “FISH POND”;
the “DISCS” are all grafting flat joints. The term is derived from the
essentiality in all of these crooked devices of a counter or other flat
area across or upon which the swindle may be conducted.
FLIM, Noun
Current in polite criminal circles. A swindle; a fraud. See “BUNK”;
“TWISTED.” Derived from “flim-flam.”
FLIM, Verb
Supra idem. To swindle; to defraud. Used especially by short-change
experts. See “LAYING”; “FLOPPER.”
FLOATER, Noun
General currency in police circles. A suspended sentence; a mandatory
order to quit a community or locality. Example: “The rap wasn’t strong
enough, so they took a floater.”
FLOP, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, dope fiends, prison habitues and to some extent
in general use by initiates in the mysteries of informal annexation. A
bed; a place to sit, recline or lie down. Also used by short changers
as a synonym of “flim.”
FLOP, Verb
Same as above. To sit or lie down. Example: “Let’s flop here on the
grass and pound our ear.” Also used by money changers to signify fraud
by confusion. Example: “There’s a muff in that candy store that can be
flopped because she can’t count change.”
FLOPPER, Noun
In general use by money changers, switchers (substituters);
flim-flammers. See “LAYING.” Example: “He calls himself a star flopper,
but he’s crabbing a string of good lays by hyping with a deuce where a
saw buck could be changed just as readily.” See “HYPER.”
FRAME, Noun
General currency. A prearranged plan of action; a secret implying
sinister intention; a “frame-up.” The contraction is used for greater
secretiveness, as is the case with all terms which have become the
common property of both criminals and their enemies. Example: “What’s
the frame for putting this one over? The lemon.”
FRISK, Noun
General usage. A search; a “shake-down”; an examination of the contents
of one’s pockets, of a room, of receptacles or of a community. Example:
“Give him a frisk and see if he has a rod.”
FRISK, Verb
Supra idem. Example: “Frisk everybody that enters the hall.”
FRONT, Noun
Some general currency, but used mainly by crooks whose operations
require a shield or distraction. An auxiliary defense; a “stall”;
a secondary who interposes his person or contributes overtly to a
surreptitious action. Example: “Give me a front here till I nick this
leather.”
FRONT, Verb
See above. To hide; to conceal a principal in open criminal action. See
“STALL.” Example: “Front me out of this joint and don’t lose my left
wing.”
FLUZIE, Noun
Current in the cosmopolitan demi-monde. A woman; a questionable female
character. See “DONY”; “HOOKER.”
GAFF, Noun
In general currency. An offensive action, thing or condition, of vague,
complex or undetermined meaning. It is variously employed or construed
to mean defeat, punishment, failure, or the instruments of these.
Example: “There’ll be no hop-heads joining out with this mob, for they
can’t stand the gaff.”
GANDER, Noun
General currency. An inquisitorial glance; a searching look; an
impertinent gazing or staring. Also the simple act of looking or
seeing. See “RUBBER[7]”; “EYE FULL.” Example: “Take a gander at this dump
as we pass, and don’t get the eye of the guinea inside.”
[7] There is no entry for “RUBBER” in the text.
GAP, Noun
Supra idem. General currency. Used also as a verb.
GASH, Noun
General currency. An invidious term for woman; synonymous with flap,
which see.
GAT, Noun
General usage. A gun; a pistol; a firearm. See “ROD”; “ROSCOE.” Derived
from “Gatling.”
GAZABO, Noun
In general use, but originating in the East. A man; any man without
regard to qualities.
GAZUNY, Noun
Supra idem. Current in ultra slangy circles. A man.
GEEZER, Noun
General circulation. A drink of liquor; a man (contemptuously).
GINK, Noun
General currency. Synonymous with “gazabo,” “gazuny,” “gink[8].”
[8] “Gink” cannot be a synonym for itself. The author probably intended
“geezer.”
GLIM, Noun
General usage. A light; a lamp; a match. Also used as a verb,
signifying illuminated. Example: “Go and take a pike (peek) at the dump
and see if it’s glimmed.”
GLIMS, Noun
General currency. A pair of spectacles or nose glasses. See
“SCENERIES”; “RINGERS.”
GLOM, Verb
General currency. To grab; to snatch; to take; implying violence.
Example: “Glom this short and drop off two blocks below.”
GOBBLED, Verb, Past Part.
General currency. Arrested. See “NAILED.”
GONGER, Noun
Current amongst opium smokers and drug fiends. An opium pipe. Also used
in the diminutive form of “GONGERINE.”
GONIF, Noun
General currency. A thief of any class; a pickpocket. The term is taken
intact from the Hebrew and is used mostly by pickpockets. See “GUN”;
“CANNON”; “BUZZARD.” Also a verb, to rob.
GOOSEBERRY, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, hobos and meanderers. A clothesline; laundry
hung up to dry. Example: “He prowled a gooseberry for a skin.”
GOPHER, Noun
Current amongst yeggs chiefly. A safe; a strong box. See “PETE.”
GRAB, Verb
General currency. Passively it signifies arrested; actively it
signifies the imperfect past action of arresting or seizing. Example:
“Steer clear of the tip: It’s made and you are liable to get grabbed.”
See “GLOMMED”; “SNEEZED.”
GRIFT, Noun
General usage. Graft; an opportunity for plying criminal talents.
Example: “How’s grift on the shorts in the winter? Crow. Too many togs.”
GROUCH BAG, Noun
Current amongst yeggs and western thieves. A place, as a pocket or
receptacle, for concealing money or valuables; a reserve fund held in
secret to the exclusion of fraternists. Example: “He’s under cover with
a grouch bag.”
GUFF, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, sailors, and old-timers. Palaver; conversation;
a contumelious synonym for egotism. See “BREEZE.”
GUINEA, Noun
General usage. In the sense of a man it is synonymous with “gazabo,”
“gink,” “mark”; it also means an Italian, as well as Europeans
generally.
GUMP, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, hobos and peripatetics generally. A chicken; a
fowl. Examples: “We’re going down in the jungles and have a gump stew.”
GUM SHOE, Noun
General currency. A detective; a silent trailer. See “PUSSY FOOT.”
GUN, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets chiefly, though enjoying familiar usage in
general circles. A pickpocket. See “CANNON”; “GONIF.”
GUN, Verb
General usage. To watch; to scrutinize. See “GANDER”; “GAP.” Used both
as verb and noun to express action or thing. Examples: “Nix! There’s a
dick on the corner gunning us.” “He’s giving us a gun.”
GUN MAN, Noun
General currency. A gun fighter.
GUNNELS, Noun
Used by all classes of criminals who beat their way on trains. The
curved trusses extending from end to end underneath both freight and
passenger cars. Example: “The only way you can ride this rattler
tonight is to make the gunnels or the rods.”
GUNSHEL, Noun
Current amongst yeggs chiefly, A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom.
Example: “The tribe’s got a gunshel pivoting on the stem with a bug,”
i. e., “The gang of tramps have sent a boy up on the main street to beg
under pretense of having a wounded or disabled arm or limb.” The term
“bug” is derived from railroad parlance, denoting a signal attached
to the front of the engine as an indication of the train’s nature,
attracting attention.
GUTS, Noun
General currency. Nerve; “sand”; ability to withstand the most
powerful emotions. A metaphor derived from the common experience of
depressing sensation concomitant with an inrush of the violent emotions
of fear, horror or other moral obstructions. To have “guts” is to
be unencumbered with conscientious scruples relative to the object
contemplated. Amongst yeggs and others familiar with clandestine
railroading the “guts” signifies the various constructive parts
underneath a car, or the hidden essentials of rolling stock. Example:
“We’ll ride the guts tonight over this division,” i. e., the gunnels,
rods, brake-beams, trucks.
GUY, Noun
Eastern currency mainly. A man. “TO GUY” is to ridicule.
GYP, Noun
Current in polite circles. The act of short-changing; a duplicity;
a defrauding by substitution; an action that belies a professed
sincerity. Example: “Look out for this guy, he’s a clever agent to slip
you a gyp.” Derived from the popular experience with thieving Gypsies.
GYP, Verb
Some general currency, but especially significant amongst short
changers. To flim-flam; to cheat by means of guile and manual
dexterity. See “HYPE”; “FLOP”; “LAYING.” Example: “Gyp this boob with a
deuce.” Also used by “flat-joint” grafters, comprehending the general
meaning of face-to-face criminal transactions.
HABIT, Noun
Current amongst dope fiends. Necessity for opiates; a craving; the
condition produced by habitual indulgence in drugs. See “YEN YEN.”
Example: “I must drop into the hotel donegan (lavatory) and fire (take
a hypodermic injection), for I feel my habit coming on.”
HACK, Noun
Current amongst yeggmen and prowlers, in general. A night watchman; a
night policeman or marshal. Most usually it signifies the watchman of
a building. Used as a verb in the past participle it describes the
accomplished function of a night watchman. Example: “The joint’s hacked
but not kipped,” i. e., watched but not occupied by a sleeper.
HAM, Verb
General usage. To walk. Example: “If we get a tumble, it’s a case of
ham.”
HANDLES, Noun
Limited usage, chiefly by criminals who understand more or less about
physiognomical description and disguises. Side-whiskers; “mutton chops.”
HANKY PANK, Noun
Current in polite slangy circles. Insincere or trifling small talk;
flattery; garrulousness. See “BREEZE”; “BULL.”
HARDWARE, Noun
Current chiefly amongst merchandise thieves. Weapons; knives; razors;
tools and paraphernalia used by safecrackers and forcible entry
prowlers. Used by holdup men to signify a weapon. Example: “Fan him for
hardware.”
HARNESS, Noun
General currency. A uniform; a shoplifter’s equipment for concealing
merchandise. A “harness bull” is the commonest form of the term’s
use, signifying a uniformed policeman in contradistinction to a plain
clothes officer or detective.
HARP, Noun
General currency. An Irishman; used principally to designate the raw
type.
HARPOON, Noun
General currency. A metaphor for lampoon; used as a verb it signifies
to “give a person the worst of it.” See “GAFF.”
HATCH, Noun
General usage. A calaboose; a prison; police station; a jail. Derived
from the nautical term “booby-hatch.” See “CAN”; “WICKY.” Example: “The
only way he can be sprung is to crush the hatch.”
HEAVY WEIGHT, Noun
Current amongst long-odds crooks. A desperate thief; a husky capable
of delivering a dangerous attack in the event of personal encounter; a
yegg; a burglar; a “stick-up man.”
HEEL, Noun
General currency. An incompetent; an undesirable; an inefficient or
pusillanimous pretender to sterling criminal qualifications. See
“FINK”; “DEAD ONE”; “CRAB”; “LOB.” Used also in the sense of “sneak” as
noun and verb, to stalk.
HEP, Noun
General circulation. Sapiency; understanding; “next”; “on.” Derived
from the name of a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati, the
legend has it, who knew so much about criminality and criminals that
his patronymic became a byword for the last thing in wisdom of illicit
possibilities. Example: “Chop the skirmish; he’s hep.”
HICKS, Noun
Current amongst “sure-thing” grafters. The walnut husks used in the
three shell and pea game. Example: “This proposition is as sure as fate
and as strong as the hicks.”
HIP, Noun
General currency. A burden; an attachment; a responsibility; an
incubus. Examples: “I can’t see you tonight; I’ve got a Jane on my
hip.” “What’s the use of taking more on your hip?” Also used to denote
being shadowed or followed. Example: “Don’t round, we’ve got somebody
on our hip.” Always used colloquially. Also current amongst opium
smokers, designating the act of lying on the side to smoke the “pipe.”
HIRAM, Noun