A Dictionary of Inmate Slang

Compiled from 1950 to 1960 at the Washington State

Penitentiary Walla Walla, Washington
By R.A. “Bob” Freeman

Author’s Note – I was the Director of Education at the

Penitentiary while this document was developed. In my office I
had daily contact with a large and varied number of inmates
who used a somewhat different and colorful language. When I
heard a term I didn’t understand, I would ask them for a
definition and note in on an alphabetical card. Over the years,
cards added up and turned into this dictionary.
R.A. “Bob” Freeman, Whitman College class of 1948

1  
 
Accidental – one who has been convicted of a sex crime, and is
usually shunned by other inmates.
Ace – a supply of money; a one-year prison term; a solid person
Ace of spades – a woman who has lost her husband via death and
has not married again; a widow.
Aces – trustworthy; solid, etc.
Active-citizen – one who works for a living; a hoosier; a square-
John; also, vermin.
Addle-cove – a foolish person; a brittle-brain; a nitwit.
Airedale – a fixer; a mouthpiece; a policeman, etc.
Alarm sheet – a circular that describes wanted criminals.
Alibi – the defense by an accused person that he was elsewhere at
the time said caper was pulled, etc.
Alive – well supplied with lucre; also, infested with vermin, crimson-
ramblers, graybacks, bosom-friends, etc.
Alky – alcohol.
Alky cooker – a distilling apparatus in which the substance is
heated, vaporized, and condensed; a still.
Alligator bait – Negroes; also, fried or stewed liver.
Altitude – for attitude. “Moe has the wrong altitude.”
Ambulance-chaser – a mouthpiece who plants the idea of suit,
having in mind a juicy fee for his services.
Anchor – the companion of the shovel or banjo; a pick.

2  
 
Andy Maginn – chin.
Angel – a generous individual who assists without trying to reform.
Angel food – bread-of-life preaching by a mission autumn-bawler;
also cake; bread.
Angelina – a punk or road-kid; the “sod” part of sod-buster; a
homo, etc.
Angle – to scheme, devise, plot, contrive, shoot-a-curve, etc.
Ankle – the mother of a bastard.
A-No.-1 – top quality; the best; bonaroo; etc.
Anoint – to beat with a whip, keys, club, etc; flog, etc.
Appleknocker – one who is uncouth, rude, boorish, etc; a yokel.
Apples ‘n pears – stairs; also, degenerate; knickknacks; lavender;
fruit, etc.
Arm – to equip persuaders; to heal or be healed.
Armored car – one which has been plated, as with steel, for
protection.
Arthur Duffy – to run away; to lam, etc.
Artificial-fever – a temperature induced by placing soap under the
arm-pits.
Artillery – liquor; narcotics; shootin’ irons, etc.
Ashes-‘n-lava – coffee.
Ashes-hauled – to relieve the pressure, as via copulation, etc.

3  
 
Auntie – an Angelina who has grown older; a punk.
Automatic – one who has completed his sentence and is
automatically due for parole; also, a self-acting pistol, etc.
Autumn – a church; the third season of the year, between summer
and winter; fall.
Autumn bawler – a parson; sky-pilot; Jerusalem-slim; missionary,
etc.
Axlegrease – butter.
B – to beg or mooch. “Moe put the B on me.”
Babbling-brook – one who runs off at the mouth; talks too much,
etc.
Baby – a desirable young girl, etc.
Back alley – the building in Folsom prison where the torture
chambers were located.
Back away – to resist; to take no chances, etc.
Backdrop – background; record, etc.
Back-gate-parole – to die while doing time in the stir.
Backslang – coined code for communication in prison, designed to
confuse anyone who is on-the-Erie.
Bacon – the plunder garnered from capers, pig’s-vest-‘n-buttons.
Badger game – a blackmail shakedown racket in which a sucker is
framed into being caught with a woman in a compromising position.

4  
 
Badger man – a hoodlum who teams with a moll in operating the
badger game.
Badger woman – a moll who teams with a hoodlum in operating the
badger game.
Bad news – a wife; trouble; a warrant of arrest, etc.
Bag – a broken down blister; a suitcase; to kill; to put into a bag,
etc.
Baldy – one lacking hair, generally an elderly man.
Balk – to resist.
Ball-bearing-girl – a queen; knickknacks; homo, etc.
Ball-bearing-mouse-trap – a male cat; a tomcat.
Balloon – a bed-roll that is usually carried on the back; a bindle.
Ballum-Rancum – a shindig where all the participants are thieves
and prostitutes.
Baloney – a conversation that is manufactured and false.
Balsam – money.
Bamboozle – to swindle; to mislead, etc.
Bananas – queer; degenerate, etc.
Bandog – a civil officer; a cop; bull, etc.
Bang – a shot of narcotics; a thrill, etc.
Bangster – one who uses narcotics; a hype; hygelo, etc.
Bang to rights – caught red-handed with the evidence.

5  
 
Banjo – a short-handled shovel; the companion of the anchor.
Bank-roll – a good supply of that long-green filthy lucre.
Bank-sneak-gang – practically non-existent now, but usually
consists of four high-type hoodlums who rob during banking hours
by cunning.
Baptized – to be showered with bullets; watered liquor, etc.
Barker – a gun, usually any small-arms; one who has I.D.
Barking irons – any small arms.
Barnacle – a yokel who works one job for a year or more.
Barney – to travel.
Barney Fair – the hair.
Barrel fever – a violent delirium induced by excessive and prolonged
used of intoxicating liquor and causing hallucinations and tremors;
D-Ts.
Barrelhouse – a boisterous dive; also, to go full-speed; to lam, etc.
Bars – vertical Venetian blinds, designed for protection, and which
can be opened only with special saws, etc.
Bat – an older woman; a prostitute who stalks the streets in search
of live ones; a vicious leather whip used to deal out lashes, etc.
Bat-carrier – a policeman.
Bats in the belfry – not all there mentally; about thirty-cents on the
dollar, etc.
Bawd – procuress or procurer.

6  
 
Bazoo – the mouth. “Clam your bazoo.”
Beagle – one of a breed of hounds with short legs and drooping ears;
a bloodhound.
Beak – the nose; a magistrate, judge, etc.
Beanery - a restaurant.
Beantown – the city of Boston.
Beard-jammer – a pervert; muff-diver; sex deviate, etc.
Beat – to steal; to outwit; escape, etc.; also, exhausted; broke, etc.
Beat-the-boards – to move with the feet or body rhythmically; to
dance.
Beat-the-joint – to escape from stir; to take a bush-parole; the caper
of beating any establishment; to rob a place, etc.
Beat-the-pavement – to walk the streets.
Beat-the-rap – to be acquitted; found not guilty, etc.
Beat your guns – to talk a lot; to flow at the mouth.
Beauty doctor – one who employs a blackjack or other weapons to
administer punishment to another.
Bee – to beg or mooch. “Moe put the bee on me.”
Beef – a criminal complaint; an information; to complain, etc.
Beef-duck-‘n-lam – you got a rumble, so get going and fast.
Beefer – a chronic whiner, usually a pigeon.
Bees-‘n-honey – money

7  
 
Beetle – an ugly woman.
Beezer – the nose; head; pumpkin; cabbage; melon, etc.
Beginner-brown – a Negro with a light-brown skin tone.
Belch – to inform; stool; cop a plea, etc.
Belfry – the head.
Believer – a reformed criminal who realizes that crime doesn’t pay;
one who has learned from experience.
Bell – the ear.
Bellyache – to complain; accuse, etc.
Belly-burglar – same as “belly-robber.”
Belly-habit – the opium habit, which affects the user’s stomach.
Belly-robber – a “co-operator” cook who tries to save money on
food.
Belly-wrinkles – wrinkles in the stomach from lack of food; bad
luck, etc.
Ben – a vest.
Bend – to steal; caper, etc.
Bender – a drinking spree; on the lush.
Benjamin – a coat; generally a short coat or jacket.
Benny – an overcoat; also, Benzedrine.
Bens – Fools.

8  
 
Benzedrine – a drug that is commonly used as a spray or inhaled to
relieve nasal congestion, chewed for the lift – a dangerous practice;
amphetamine.
Bernice – narcotics.
Berry – a dollar.
Be-up – to be eligible to meet with the parole board for parole
consideration, etc.
B-I – Bureau of Identification.
Bible – the Book; to swear or take an oath.
Bibleback – one who “gets” religion in stir to create an impression;
generally a rapo or homo, etc.
Big Apple, The – the city of New York.
Big-guy – the top hoodlum; leader of a mob.
Big-house – a state penitentiary; prison.
Big-man – the top hoodlum; leader of a mob.
Big-muddy – prison gravy.
Big-Ole – the jerk show-off who will do all your work, if salved.
Big-school – the state penitentiary; prison.
Big-shot – a notorious criminal or leader of a mob.
Big-stir – a state penitentiary; prison.
Big-time – the top bracket of criminal operations.

9  
 
Big-top – a bank; a building in which prisoners are locked up; a
cell-block.
Big-wheel – a bon-con who usually holds a plum job; one having an
important job; a big-shot.
Bill – money.
Billy-noodle – a spineless fellow who believes all the fluffs are madly
in love with him.
Bim, or bimbo – a girl; frail; quail; fluff, etc.
Bindle – a bed-roll, usually carried on the back; a small package of
narcotics.
Bindle-bum – one who carries his bed roll; a tramp.
Bindle-stiff – one who carries his bed-roll, a tramp.
Bing – a shot of narcotics.
Bing in the wing – a hypodermic shot of narcotics in the arm.
Bingo – a game of chance similar to lotto.
Bird’s eye – a small shot of narcotics.
Biscuit shooter – a waiter, hash-slinger, flunky, etc.
Bit – a term in stir; a share from a caper, etc.
Bit borrower – one who contrives to get into prison, preferring stir
to the outside; usually a homo.
Bitch – a disagreeable or lewd woman; to complain; a life sentence
as a habitual criminal; a good joke, etc.

10  
 
Bitch, little – a long prison sentence that is invoked by reason of
prior convictions.
Bite – to beg or mooch. “Put the bite on.”
Biters – teeth; choppers; pickets, etc.
Black bottle – a mixture of deadly poison.
Black box – a lawyer; mouthpiece, etc.
Black boy – a policeman.
Blackjack – a short club, usually leather-covered, consisting of a
heavy head on an elastic shaft.
Black leg – a professional criminal.
Blackmail – any payments extorted by intimidation.
Black-maria – a police patrol wagon.
Black ointment – raw meat.
Black shirt – an inmate office clerk; a bon-con, etc.
Black snake – a Negro’s penis.
Black stuff – opium. “We gloomed fifty taels of black stuff.”
Black-V – a fireproof vault, generally painted black.
Blade – a homemade knife; shiv, etc.
Bladder – a newspaper, scandal sheet, etc.
Blanket – a cigarette paper.
Blanket stiff – a vagabond who carries his bed-roll.

11  
 
Blast – a shot of narcotics; to use force; criticize; shoot, etc.
Bleat – to confess; inform; rat; turn state’s evidence, etc.
Blessed – reformed.
Blind – to bet without first looking at the cards; a cover-up; without
sight, etc.
Blind pig – a place where intoxicating liquor is solid without a
license, and contrary to the law; a speakeasy, etc.
Blind book – an arrest for investigation.
Blindfold – to cover the eyes; covered eyes, etc.
Blinds – the false doors at the ends of a baggage car.
Blinkey – one who is blind or nearly so.
Blister – an old broken-down woman; a bag, etc.
Block – a timepiece; watch; super, etc.
Block, Mr. – a naïve fellow who labors under the impression that
officers of the law are honest.
Block-‘n-tackle – a watch and chain.
Bloke – a yokel.
Bloodhound – a dog with a very acute sense of smell, used for
tracking fugitives, etc; a detective; a member of a homicide squad,
etc.
Blood-money – a fee to a murderer; money paid to survivors of a
slain person.
Bloomer – a failure; a stupid caper, etc.
12  
 
Blot – to kill.
Blot out – to kill; rub-out; etc.
Blotter – a book in which arrests, etc. are recorded; an assassin.
Blotto – overly drunk; incapable of reasoning.
Blow – to run away; make a getaway; escape; drug, etc.
Blow a box – to crack a safe with explosives.
Blowback – the act of returning stolen goods; to make restitution,
etc.
Blowen – the mistress of a crook; moll.
Blowin’ it – is mentally deranged; ready for the chuckle-box.
Blow off – a situation which has reached the explosive final stage.
Blow one’s top – to lose one’s sense of judgement; go crazy.
Blow one up – to blast a safe or vault, as with soup.
Blow the bug – to disconnect a burglar alarm system, as on a safe,
etc.
Blow the cork – to become mentally-deranged; to become rubber
chain material.
Blow the burg – to exit; to leave the city; to scram.
Blow up – a heated argument; an explosion, etc.
Bludgett – a female thief.
Blue-John – creamless or watered milk.
Blue-ruin – inferior gin of the bathtub vintage; dehorn, etc.
13  
 
Blunderbuss – a short musket of wide bore with expanded muzzle; a
shotgun, particularly one with a sawed-off barrel.
Blunt – money; an abrupt manner, etc.
Bo – a wandering vagrant; a vagabond.
Board – the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles.
Board stiff- a member of the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles.
Boat-‘n-oar – whore.
Boatman – the operator of a vessel which smuggles goods, etc.
Bobtail – a short local freight train.
Bogus – counterfeit; an unreliable person or thing; phony, etc.
Bohunk – a stupid person.
Boiled – all lushed up; drunk; piflicated.
Boiler – an automobile; heap, etc.
Boil-up – to wash clothes; a hobo expression for boiling clothes in
the jungle to kill vermin as well as cleanse.
Boil-up-can – a container for boiling clothes, usually a five-gallon
can.
Boke – the nose; a man.
Bolts-‘n-Nuts – insane; laughing-academy material.
Bonaroo – the very best; Bonnie Rue.
Bon-con – a prison inmate clerk who dresses in better clothing than
the main-line; a term of contempt.

14  
 
Bonded – the very best; bonaroo.
Bone-crusher – a vicious dog.
Bonehead – lacking or not showing any keenness of mind; thirty-
cents on the dollar.
Bone-polisher – a vicious dog; a tailor’s helper.
Boneyard – a cemetery; also a hospital or medical college where
cadavers are used for study.
Bonnie Rue – first class; bonaroo.
Bonny-fair – hair.
Boob – a silly or stupid person who is about thirty-cents on the
buck.
Booby-hatch – an insane asylum; chuckle-box, etc.
Booby-trap – a bomb hidden so that it is set off unexpectedly; a trap
set by a con-man to clip a sucker, etc.
Boo-coo – plenty. “The old haybag has a boo-coo do-ray-me.”
Boodle – caper money; loot.
Boodle-jail – a can that may be used for a good winter’s lodging.
Boodle-of-queer – a batch of counterfeit money.
Book – a life prison sentence.
Bookmaker – a lifer; one doing a life jolt; a professional gambler
who accepts the bets of others, as on horses in racing.
Booley-dog – a policeman.

15  
 
Boomer – a roamer; an itinerant worker.
Boost – to steal from stores; shoplift, etc.
Booster – a shoplifter.
Boot-hill – a prison cemetery.
Bosom friends – body lice; crimson ramblers, etc.
Boss-man – the hoodlum in charge of a gang; the one in charge, etc.
Boston bum – one of those superior fellows; a highbrow poser.
Bottle-‘n-stopper – copper; a policeman.
Bottoms up – a cup; drink up, etc.
Bounce – to eject; leap; rebound; think, etc.
Bouncer – one who ejects undesirables; a worthless check; one who
robs while dickering with a merchant.
Bowery barometer – a curbstone-philosopher who is a general
information bureau, but is not necessarily highbrow.
Box – a safe; a police station; a jail, etc.
Boxcar-number – a large number.
Boxer – one who specializes in cracking petes.
Box-man –a safe-cracker; a pete-man.
Bozo – an unimportant fellow; a bloke.
Bozy – domineering, arrogant, overbearing, etc.
Bracelets – ring shaped shackles for the wrists, connected by a
chain.
16  
 
Brads – money.
Brains – the top hoodlum of a criminal organization; the boss, etc.
Brass – the main administrative officers; spurious jewelry; money.
Brass-key – a prison officer of the higher rank.
Brass-knucks – heavy metal weapons used on the fists; brasses.
Brass-peddler – one who sells spurious jewelry, or slum.
Break – to escape suddenly; an attempted escape; to force entry.
Breakdown – to crack under pressure; confess; cop-a-plea, etc.
Breastworks – a woman’s teats; knockers; bumpers, etc.
Breeze – a short time; to travel; get going.
Briar – a saw for cutting bars; a hacksaw blade; a pipe, etc.
Bricks – freedom; on the street. “That shyster put me on the bricks
for a price.”
Brick dough – money used for a bribe to obtain freedom.
Bridal-chamber – a flophouse where the guests sleep on the floor.
Brig – any place of confinement; naut., the compartment of a ship
where prisoners are confined.
Bright-eyes – one who spies; informer.
Bring – to receive a prison sentence. “How much time did you bring
with you?”
Bring-up – the length of stir time one receives and must do.
Briny – unpleasant; hostile, etc.
17  
 
Brittle-brain – a stupid fellow; one who is about ready for the
chuckle box.
Broad – a female; twist; fluff; quail; frail; fem, etc.
Broad jumper – one who forcibly violates a female; a rapo.
Brodie – escape. “Moe did a Brodie, so that count is one short.”
Broken-leg – the mother of a bastard.
Broker – one who is without funds.
Bronze-kimona – death.
Brothel-dog – a chambermaid in a brothel; one who does menial
tasks, etc.
Brothers-‘n-sisters – whiskers.
Brown – to practice sodomy; to break “sod.”
Brown-derby – an opium pill when cooked and ready for smoking.
Browning-sisters – Angelinas, punks, sod-busters, etc.; the Angelina
sorority.
Brum – a prostitute, harlot, etc.
Brown-nose – to cater to those in authority.
Brunser – the opening at the lower end of the alimentary canal for
excretion; anus.
Buck – a priest; a dollar; money, generally.
Buck’s face – the husband of an unfaithful wife; a cuckold.

18  
 
Bug – yeast, used to put life into a batch of pruno, etc.; a flash-light;
a cigarette lighter; a burglar alarm; also, to confine in an insane
asylum.
Bug-department – the booby-hatch in a prison pogey.
Bugged up – equipped with a burglar alarm system.
Buggy – an automobile; a heap; also, dingy, etc.
Buggy-bandit – one who steals automobiles.
Bugster – one who specializes in blowing petes.
Build – to do preparatory work on a proposed caper; case.
Build up – the preparation necessary to steer conditions so that a
caper can be consummated, etc.
Bull – a railroad locomotive; any police officer or prison guard; tall
stories, lies, etc.
Bull-artist – one with a gift of gab who dreams up yarns, etc.
Bull-cook – a flunkey who does the heavy and dirty work for the
chef.
Bulldozer – one who starts swinging fists for practically no reason; a
pugnacious fellow.
Bullet – an ace in playing cards; a small metal projectile for firing
from small-arms.
Bulletproof-toast – a stir special consisting of slightly-dunked and
fried bread.
Bull-hearted – to be by nature, an informer; a pigeon, etc.

19  
 
Bull-horrors – an abnormal and unreasonable fear of the police;
copper-shy.
Bull-killer – one who has bumped an officer of the law.
Bull-lock – an individual padlock which is used on cell doors.
Bull-pen – an enclosed area where male prisoners are allowed to
exercise and fraternize; cow-pen for women inmates.
Bull-ring – a third-degree squad; an exercise area for inmates.
Bull’s eye – a beam of light from a flashlight.
Bull-simple – one who has an unreasonable fear of officers of the
law; bull-horrors; copper-shy.
Bully – a weapon consisting of a lump of lead secured in a
handkerchief; a bulldozer.
Bum – one who has gravitated to the low vagrant stage; to beg;
mooch, etc.
Bum-beef – a fraudulent criminal charge; an unjust conviction.
Bumblebees – knees.
Bum-check-artist – one who writes and attempts to pass rubber-
checks.
Bumpers – a woman’s breastworks; teats; knockers; also, assassins.
Bump, or bump-off – to kill; to die.
Bum-rap – a fraudulent criminal charge; to be wrongfully accused.
Bum’s rush – to be ejected bodily; dismissed; ignored.

20  
 
Bunco – any caper designed to clip a mark via confidence, and
involving trickery.
Bunco-man – one who operates the bunco capers; a con-man.
Bunco-steerer – one who steers the suckers and is in cahoots with
the bunco-man.
Bundle – a roll of money garnered from capering, etc.
Bunk – inferior.
Bunker – the ice compartment of a refrigerated railroad car, which
is appropriated for riding and sleeping when empty.
Bunk-habit – the practice of lounging where opium is being smoked
and inhaling the fumes; the habit of staying in bed.
Bureau – a department, usually detective headquarters, or detective
bureau.
Burg – a city or town.
Burglar – one who breaks and enters the house of another with
intent to commit a felony.
Burglar-cop – an officer of the law who accepts bribes from crooks;
one who actually capers.
Buried-deep – to be sentenced to a long term prison.
Burlap – a suit. “The clothing-room wants Moe to try on his
burlap.”
Burn – to execute by electrocution to kill with firearms; to cheat; to
extort by torture.
Burnese – narcotics.
21  
 
Burns – a detective of the Burns Detective Agency; the agency itself.
Burnt – electrocuted; trouble; bad luck, etc.
Burrhead – a Negro; alligator-bait.
Bury – to give a long prison sentence.
Bushing – a small brass button in the center of an opium pipe bowl.
Bush-parole – to escape from prison; to beat-the-joint.
Business, the – a hypodermic needle and plunger; to kill, etc.
Bust – arrest; to strike; to lam, etc.
Butcher – a sadistic individual who, although not required to
witness an execution, is in attendance; any sadist.
Butt, a – any fraction of a year; a partially smoked cigarette or
cigar; the rear-end. “Moe has two years and a butt to do.”
Button, or button-up – stop talking; keep quiet; shut-up; clam, etc.
Buttons – a uniformed officer of the law; brains, etc.
Butts – a partially smoked cigarette or cigar; the remainder.
Buy – to believe; invest in, etc.
Buzz – to prowl and steal; plunder; to talk, etc.
Buzzer – a burglar; also, a police badge.
C – cocaine; also, one-hundred dollars.
Cabbage – a person’s head; melon; pumpkin; also, money.
Cab-moll – a female crook who lures her marks into taxicabs for
clipping.
22  
 
Cacker – a white-collar worker.
Cad – a baggage smasher; a railroad conductor.
Cage – a room in a cheap hotel or lodging house; a prison cell.
Cain-‘n-Abel – taboo.
Cake-‘n-wine – bread and water.
Cake-eater – one who is overly concerned about his manners and
appearance; a fop.
Cal – California.
Calaboose – a police station or jail.
California-blankets – newspapers, when used as blankets.
Calling-card – finger prints left at the scene of a crime; any evidence
which ties one to a caper.
Cally – California.
Camera-eye – one with a keen memory for faces and things.
Camisole – a canvas contraption for confining the arms of a
violently insane person, etc.; a straitjacket.
Can – a jail; a safe; still, etc.
Canary – an informer; one who will sing; a pigeon.
Canary-bird – any inmate of a penal institution.
Candle-eater – a term used for a Russian.
Candy – narcotics.
Candy-job – a pleasant job.
23  
 
Candy-kid – a fellow who gets the breaks; one who is lucky.
Canister – a jail; a pistol, etc.
Canned – one who is blotto from too much lush; fired, etc.
Canned-heat – denatured alcohol; dehorn.
Cannon – a pickpocket; a shooting’-iron, etc.
Cannonball – a fast freight train; a rattler; a particular type of safe.
Cannoball-peter – a cylindrical steel burglar-proof safe with built-
up doors.
Can-opener – a steel instrument, resembling a large can opener,
used to cut thru the thin outer walls of cheap safes – often used on
residence safes where explosives would rouse the occupants.
Can-shooter – one who blows safes; a pete-man.
Canvas – a contraption for confining the arms of violently insane
persons, etc.; straitjacket; camisole, etc.; also, “canvas-brassiere.”
Cap – a fulminate device, which when attached to a fuse, sets off
nitroglycerin or other explosive.
Caper – a specific crime; a job; any illegitimate enterprise.
Capper – a decoy who steers victims to a gambling game which is
usually crooked.
Captain – a term used in addressing a head-man, boss, etc.
Captain Heeman – a blustering fellow.
Captain Topper – an adroit highwayman.

24  
 
Capt’n-of-the-head – a privy clean-up man aboard a ship; same as
latrine-orderly in the Army; Chief Sanitary Engineer in stir.
Carbolic-dip – a delousing solution in which clothes are dipped.
Carbon-copy – an inmate who is a “co-operator;” a bull-lover.
Card-man – one who belongs to a labor union.
Cargo – a load of freight, etc. “Moe’s mugs heisted the truck and
liquor cargo.”
Carny – one who works at carnivals; a carnival.
Carry-iron – to be healed.
Carry-the-banner – one who walks the streets all night for want of
shelter; one who is financially flat; on the bum; a broker.
Cartwheel – an imitation spasm executed to get a shot of dope, etc.
Casa – a house.
Case – to make a preliminary examination of a spot or mark prior
to capering.
Case-dough – the money paid to the party that cases a proposed job.
Caser – one who checks and double-checks a mark before a caper.
Castor – a hat; lid, etc.
Casualties – losses; injured, killed, etc.
Cat – an informer; a stool-pigeon; a prostitute; a cross old woman,
etc.
Cat-bandit – one who capers at night.

25  
 
Cat-caper – a crime of any kind committed at night.
Cathouse – a house of ill fame; a whorehouse.
Cat-up – a holdup; a stickup; both accomplished at night.
Cat-wagon – a brothel on wheels which cates to Army camps,
harvest workers, etc.
Catwalk – a passageway that runs in front of the cells; corridor.
Cave – a prison or jail cell.
Cecil – cocaine.
Cell – a small room in prison where inmates are confined when not
employed elsewhere.
Cellbox – a trunk-like box in which inmates store their personal
gear.
Cell-bucket – a dung bucket, used in lieu of a commode.
Cellmate – one with whom an inmate cells.
Cell-shock – dingy as a result of doing time; unbalanced mentally.
Cell-tender – an inmate who is in charge of a corridor of cells in a
wing, who locks and unlocks doors, keeps catwalk clean, etc.
Central – a police station.
Century – one-hundred dollars.
Chain – a group of prisoners being transported from jail to a state
prison – they are usually handcuffed in pairs and fastened to a long
chain that passes between each two so shackled.

26  
 
Chain-gain – a group of prisoners, usually chained together when in
camp, in transit, when working, etc.
Chain-man – the bull in charge of a chain.
Chair – an electrified chair, used to execute by electrocution.
Chalk – being at or on one side; right or left chalk; also, milk.
Chalk-builders – shoulders.
Chalk-farm – the arm.
Change-the-needle – try a different subject, approach, etc.; clam.
Charge – to blame or accuse, as of a crime; a quantity of explosive to
be set-off at one time; to instruct authoritatively as a judge does a
jury, etc.
Charged-up – to be well-loaded with narcotics or lush; high.
Charge-out – to start from a rendezvous, bent on a specific caper;
etc.
Charley – a gold watch; cocaine.
Charley Hocks – socks.
Charley Prescott – a vest.
Charley Ripe – pipe.
Charley Roller – collar.
Charley Rousers – trousers.
Chaw – an Irishman; to discuss, as to chaw it over.

27  
 
Cheat-‘em – to beat the state via suicide or natural death; to
swindle, etc.
Cheaters – spectacles, usually worn as a disguise.
Check – one-dollar; to stop, etc.
Checkerboard-crew – a mixed gang of whites and Negroes.
Cheeno – a Chinaman.
Cheesy – unkept; filthy, etc.
Chef – one who cooks opium; a head cook.
Cherry – a woman, especially a young woman who has had no
sexual intercourse; a virgin.
Cherry-flips – lips.
Cherry-picker – a profligate rake who cops cherries.
Chess – one of the popular games in stir, played by two persons,
each with sixteen pieces, on a checkerboard or chessboard.
Chested – a safe that is equipped with an inner steel chest, or a safe
within a safe.
Chewing-gum – a gag for the mouth.
Chick – a young girl; San Quentin quail, etc.
Chicken-dinner – a desirable young girl.
Chicken-feed – a small amount of money.
Chicken-in-the-clay – fowl which is rolled in mud for roasting.
Chief – the top hoodlum; the boss, etc.

28  
 
Chief Sanitary Engineer – the inmate who is in charge of policing
the privy.
Chiggers – a warning; the office.
Chill – to cool off; to strike or be struck with sudden fear or terror.
Chime – o’clock; as four chimes means four o’clock.
Cinch – something that involves no risk; safe and easy, etc.
Chinese-saxophone – a pipe used for smoking opium; an opium
pipe.
Chink – money; a Chinaman.
Chip – a cash register.
Chippy – a wench who peddles herself at cut-rates; a chiseler.
Chips – money. “Moe scored and is in the chips.”
Chisel – to obtain by trickery.
Chiseler – a small operator; a petty thief; a cheat, etc.
Chiv, or shiv – a cutting instrument consisting essentially of a thin
blade attached to a handle; a knife; a razor; a blade, etc.
Choir-boy – one who sings to the cops; an informer; rat, etc.
Choke – an arm-lock applied to a mark’s neck in mugging.
Chonk – to quit; give up. “Let’s chonk the deal.”
Chop – to extinguish one’s lights; to kill; blot; stop, etc.
Chop-a-hoosier – to stop; clip; blot, etc.
Chopper – a machine gun; also, one who kills for a fee; an assassin.
29  
 
Chow – food; chuck, etc.
Chow-joint – any eating-house or restaurant.
Chow-wagon – food; let’s eat. “Bring on the chow-wagon.”
Christen – to baptize, as with lead; bullets, etc.
Chronic – one who continues to return to prison; a repeater a
recidivist.
Chuck-a-dummy – to pretend; pull a fast one, etc.
Chuck-dough – money with which to purchase food.
Chuck-horrors – an intense craving for food, and fear of not being
able to supply the requirements.
Chuckle-box – an insane asylum; a booby-hatch; a laughing-
academy, etc.
Chump – a victim; an honest citizen; a square-John, etc.
Church – a place where marking on stolen jewelry are changed;
also, autumn.
Ciggies – cigarettes.
Cinder-bull – a uniformed cop who beats the pavement.
Circus – a good time.
City, the – any city jail.
City-college – the Tombs or the city prison of New York.
Clam, or clam-up – stop talking; keep quiet; shut-up; button, etc.
Claws – fingers.

30  
 
Clean – without muss, fuss, or violence. “The caper was pulled
clean.”
Clean-a-mark – to clip a sucker.
Clean-a-poke – to extract the contents of wallet by cunning.
Clean-one – to crack an empty safe; to score, etc.
Clean-the-books – to cause a suspect to cop-out to unsolved crimes,
via promises, threats, etc. in order to show an efficient department.
Clink – any place of incarceration; a jail; prison, etc.
Clinker – a sour musical note.
Clinkers – shackles used in transporting prisoners; fetters, etc.
Clip – to defraud; a steal, etc.
Clip-his-mark – to steal, as a victim’s purse, to swindle, etc.
Clipped – to be without funds; to swindle or be swindled.
Clipper – a shoplifter; a swindler, etc.
Clock – a watch; block, etc.
Clonk – an automobile; to assault.
Clout – to steal; assault, etc.
Clown – any officer of the law.
Clubs-‘n-sticks – dicks.
Cluck – a woman or girl.
Clue – anything that assists in the solution of a crime, etc.

31  
 
C-note – a one-hundred dollar bill.
Coast – to take it easy.
Cocaine – a bitter crystalline alkaloid obtained from coca leaves and
used as a narcotic.
Coco – a person’s head; cabbage; noggin, etc.
Coconut – the head; lumps, etc. “After the fracas, Moe had coconuts
on his noggin.”
Coffee and – doughnuts and jamoke.
Coffin – to be in a coffin is to be incarcerated for a long period of
time; buried; stir; a box used for planting stiffs, etc.
Coffin-nail - cigarette.
Coke – cocaine.
Coke-pusher – one who sells cocaine; a dope-peddler.
Coke-sniffer – one who audibly inhales cocaine crystals through his
nose.
Cokey – one addicted to the use of cocaine; a drug addict.
Cold – unconscious; dead, etc.
Cold-clock – to kill; blot; rub, etc.
Coldcock – to knock unconscious. “Moe coldcocked the hoosier.”
Cold-deck – a pack of cards prepared for clipping a mark; stacked.
Cold-meat – dead.

32  
 
Cold-meat party – the ceremonies connected with the disposition of
the body of a dead person; a funeral.
Cold-meat wagon – a funeral vehicle for conveying a stiff to the
place of burial; a hearse.
Cold-one – a dead one; an empty safe.
Cold-prowler – a burglar who specializes in prowling homes during
the daytime.
Cold-storage – any place of incarceration.
Cold-turkey-rap – a criminal charge based on indisputable eye-
witness testimony.
Collar – to take into custody; arrest, etc.
Collar-a-nod – to get some sleep.
Collar-‘n-elbow – a police officer.
Collar-‘n-shoulder style – same as “family style,” where the food is
put on the table and the diners help themselves.
College – any penal institution.
Collision-mats – flapjacks, as only a belly-robber can kick together.
Comb, or combo – the combination of a safe or strongbox.
Combination stew – a mulligan of mixed vegetables and meat.
Combination train – a train that hauls mixed loads of passengers
and freight.
Come clean – tell the truth; confess, etc.

33  
 
Come-on guy – a pace setter on a job who receives extra pay on the
sly; also, a decoy for a gambling joint; sucker bait; a steerer, etc.
Also, “come-on man.”
Come to Jesus – to feign piety; the minister’s collar is referred to as
a come-to-Jesus collar.
Commute – to change a penalty to one less severe.
Con – any person who has been convicted of a crime; T-B; to
swindle; the conductor on a train, etc.
Con-cat – an inmate informer; a pigeon.
Concrete-overcoat – to bury a body in concrete.
Coney Island – a phony investigation of graft involving officers of
the law, politicians, etc.; a whitewash job.
Confession – an admission of guilt.
Confidence man – a smooth-talking swindler.
Con-game – any caper designed to clip a hoosier via confidence;
graft, involving trickery.
Conk – the head; to assault, as on the head.
Con-key – a trusty who has charge of other prisoners.
Con-man – one who practices a confidence game and obtains money,
etc. by fraud; a grifter.
Connect – to make a successful touch; to complete arrangements,
etc.
Connection – a place to buy narcotics; a person who buys or sells
narcotics, or handles hot-stuff; a fixer, etc.
34  
 
Connive – to cooperate secretly to aid wrongdoing; to scheme,
usually to get contraband into prison, etc.
Con-queen – a male inmate who is very, very feminine; a ball-
bearing-girl; a homo, etc.
Consent-job – copulation with permission.
Control room – the custodial office of a prison where the officers-in-
charge exercise control over the movements of the operations within
the institution.
Con-wise – to be versed in the methods and ways of inmates; cagey.
Cookee – the one in command next to the chief cook.
Cooking with gas – everything’s going just right.
Cook up – to prepare extra chow, usually contrary to prison
regulations.
Cool – lacking in enthusiasm and cordiality; unruffled; blot, etc.
Cool-cucumber – a person who is calm and deliberate.
Cooler – any place of incarceration.
Cool off – to die; pas away; calm down, etc.
Coonshout – a sad imitation of oldtime Negro-style singing.
Co-operator – one who informs and caters to the officers; usually a
pigeon.
Cop – a policeman; plead guilty; steal; take, etc.
Cop a heel – to get going and fast; run away; lam, etc. Also, “cop a
lam.”

35  
 
Cop a mope – to take a walk.
Cop a plea – to plead guilty.
Cop a slave – to get a job.
Cop a sneak – to slip quietly away.
Cop a squat – to sit down.
Cop out – to confess; cop; cop a plea, etc.
Copper – good-time allowed for good behavior; a policeman.
Copper-hearted – to be by nature a police informer; a stool; a rat,
etc.
Copper-shy – to be afraid of the law; to have bull-horrors.
Cork – the seat of thought; head; top, etc.
Cork off – to go to sleep.
Corn – moonshine liquor distilled from corn mash; silly talk, etc.
Corridor – a passageway which runs in front of the cells.
Corset – a canvas contraption for confining the arms of violently
insane persons, etc.; a straitjacket.
Cotton – the taste one has in his mouth the morning following a
bender.
Cough up – to give information; to squeal under pressure.
Count – a periodical check in stir to make sure no one has gotten
rabbit-legs.
County, the – any county jail.

36  
 
Courage pills –any of the narcotic substances that blunt senses.
Cove – a boy or man of any age or station; the brain.
Cover – a shelter; hide-out; protect, as with gun-fire.
Cover car – an extra car employed in a heavy caper to observe an
assist if necessary.
Cow – a dilapidated old woman.
Cowboy – an unsophisticated person; one who is uncouth; rude; a
rustic.
Cow-pen – an inclosed area where female prisoners are allowed to
exercise and fraternize. Bull-pen for male prisoners.
Cows-‘n-kisses – the ladies.
Crack – to open, as a safe; to speak, as to crack wise; to confess, as
under pressure, a female.
Cracked-ice – precious stones which have been removed from their
settings to avoid detection.
Cracker, or croacus – a member of the medical profession; a pill-
roller.
Crackers – beans.
Crap – a game of chance in which small cubes are used whose sides
are marked with different numbers of spots; dice; the numbers “2”
and “3”; baloney; feces, etc.
Crash – to enter or leave a building forcibly; to fall, etc.
Crash-stir – to break prison; escape.

37  
 
Crate – an automobile; heap, etc.
Crawler – a man with both legs amputated and who is usually a
beggar.
Crease – to wound slightly.
Creek, the – the large veins; the mainline.
Creep – one who robs while the sucker is otherwise engaged, usually
undressed and with a quail; the panel-game.
Creepers – light, soft-soled slippers; sneak-thieves.
Creep-pad – a house of prostitution where the girls are pickpockets.
Crib – a safe; a house; a brothel, etc.
Crimp – one who renders insensible, as by drugs, in order to ship
forcibly on a vessel needing sailors; a trick employed in cards so the
deck will be cut in a certain place.
Crimson-ramblers – body lice; bosom-friends, etc.
Crip – one who is deprived of the use of one or more of his limbs; a
lame person; a cripple.
Crip-faker – one who pretends to be crippled.
Croak – to kill; die, etc.
Croaker – a physician or surgeon; a pill twister.
Croaker’s line – a line of inmates waiting to see the prison doctor.
Crocodile – a Negro.
Crocodile tears – phony tears.

38  
 
Crocus – a doctor; a pill twister.
Crook – any dishonest person; thief; swindler, etc.
Crooked-arm –a signal for more speed.
Crookery – any dishonest act, such as swindling.
Crown – to assault, especially on the head.
Crud – when one has the “crud,” everything he eats turns to dung.
Cruiser – a streetwalker; a chippy; a police prowl car, etc.
Crum – any of certain small wingless, bloodsucking insects,
including several varieties associated with man; louse.
Crum-boss – a camp flunkey who builds fires in the stoves, etc.
Crumbs – a small snare; that which is left.
Crumbs-the-deal – to cause to become entangled; to make difficult;
to ruin, etc.
Crummy – infested with vermin; lousy; filty, etc.
Crums – lice; graybacks; seam-squirrels, etc.
Crum-up – to clean-up; boil-up, etc.
Crusher – one who overpowers by force; a policeman.
Crystal-cocaine – the type of cocaine used in hypodermic shots in
solution; also used for sniffing, which produces the twitchy nose, etc.
Cubby – living quarters; a room; apartment; home, etc.
Cuckold – the husband of an unfaithful wife.
Cuffs – handcuffs.
39  
 
Curbstone-court – the act of paying off the law, as on the street, etc.
to avoid arrest.
Curtains – the end; death.
Cush – money.
Cushions – a term used in referring to passenger trains; first class;
bonaroo, etc.
Cuspidor – a bowl used a receptacle for spit; a goboon; spittoon.
Cut – a portion or part allotted or belonging to, or contributed or
owed by an individual or organization; disappointed; scram; went,
etc.
Cut loose – to let go; released, as on parole, etc.
Cutor – the prosecuting attorney; D.A.
Cut second – the shortest possible time; in a flash.
Cut the rug – to fling the heels, as in a dance; have a good time, etc.
Cutting up touches – discussing scores made on capers.
Cut up – to discuss; a joker, etc.
Cymbal – a watch; block, etc.
Czar – the supreme power.
D.A. – District Attorney; a prosecuting attorney.
Daddles – hands.
Dago – an Italian.
Dairy – a woman’s breasts; teats; milk-shakes; breast-works, etc.

40  
 
Daisy-chain – a group of perverts plying their off-color color
passions.
Daisy Roots – Boots
Damper – a cash register; a money till.
Dan – dynamite.
Dance- to be executed by hanging on the gallows, etc.; to follow
another’s orders.; do another’s bidding, etc.
Dance-hall – the death chamber of a prison where executions are by
hanging on a gallows.
Dangler – one who causes another to surrender chastity; a seducer.
Darb – a good one. “Moe’s joke was a darb.”
Darbies – ring shaped shackles for the wrists, connected by a chain;
handcuffs; fetters.
Darby – a pocketbook.
Dark-eye – invisible ink.
Dark-horse – a racehorse, competitor, etc. that is little-known or
who unexpectedly wins.
D-C – Discharge or release from stir.
D-C-front – the clothing furnished to an inmate upon discharge
from prison.
D-D – a deaf mute.
Dead – no longer living; finished; caught in the act, etc.
Dead-bang – caught red-handed, with evidence.
41  
 
Dead-line – a line that is located about three feet from the walls and
various buildings, over which one must not go – to do so is but to
flirt with lead from a guard’s rifle; a time limit.
Dead-lock – to lock-up all prisoners as a safety precaution during an
execution, at night, and on special occasions when free men are
within the walls. Individual cells are placed under dead-lock at
times for various reasons.
Dead-one – a person without funds; an empty bottle; a drunken
person; one who is not living.
Dead-picker – a hoodlum who rolls drunks.
Dead-soldier – an empty bottle.
Dead-tumble –lamped in the act, etc.
Dear-John – see “that’s all she wrote”.
Death-house – the room or rooms set aside for execution.
Deck – a package of narcotics; a package of cigarettes; the floor; a
deck of cards; the top of a railroad car, etc.
Deck ‘em – to ride the top of a passenger train, or freight.
Declare – to state one’s position emphatically.
Declare-in – to give a share, as of loot, etc., cut-in, etc.
Decorate the mahogany – put up your money; buy the drinks; line
the bar with thirsty throats and brimming glasses.
Decoy – one who, or that which, entices a mark into position for
clipping.
Deem, or Deemer – a dime, or ten-cent piece.
42  
 
Dehorn – denatured alcohol; canned-heat; any inferior liquor.
Den – a dive where opium derivatives and marijuana are sold and
used.
Deputy – a person appointed to act for another or others.
Derail – an inferior alcoholic concoction such as denatured alcohol,
canned-heat, etc., which throws the users off the track physically
and mentally; dehorn.
Derrick – a shoplifter
Designer – a counterfeiter
Detainer – a hold placed on a prisoner about to be released,
charging him with an offense for which he has yet to answer.
Detective – a member of the police force, whose function it is to
obtain information and evidence as of offenses against the law; a
dick.
Deuce – a two-year prison term; a two-dollar bill; two, a couple, etc.
Devil-books – playing cards.
Dial – the nose.
Dice-train – a train carrying valuable merchandise.
Dick – a detective; any police officer.
Dicky-dirk – shirt.
Diddle – to indulge in copulation; to play around, etc.
Diddle-cove – one who has nothing but sex on his mind.
Dig – get your money in sight; get going; lam; hide, etc.
43  
 
Dig-a-grave – shave.
Dig-deep – get all your money in sight.
Dilly – a dandy.
Dime – a ten-year prison term; a ten-cent piece.
Dinah, Dino, Dyno – explosives, and particularly dynamite.
Dinero – money
Ding – one who is mentally deranged; utterly senseless; simple-
minded; also, to put the bite on; beg, etc.
Dingaling – one who is not all there mentally, rubber-chain
material.
Dingbat – one who is off-his-rocker; a ding.
Dinger – one who begs, mooches, etc.
Dinkey-skinner – one who operates a small locomotive.
Dinner – a curvacious, desirable quail.
Dip – a pickpocket.
Dipsy – a sentence to the workhouse or house of correction.
Dirt-shute – the rectum; ring; hoop, etc.
Discard-artist – a kinky gambler who employs a trick in switching
cards, etc.
Dishes – teeth, particularly false ones; plates; choppers; pickets,
etc.; also, gives; hands-out, etc.

44  
 
Ditch – to get rid of; to conceal from sight; to conceal oneself; hide,
etc.
Dive – to quite; hide; a disreputable place; get married.
Diver – a pickpocket.
Division-hopper – one who hitches rides on trains from one division
to another.
Divvy – to apportion; share; divide; give, etc.
D-J – the Department of Justice, or one of its agents.
Do – to ruin; kill; swindle, etc.
Do-a-bunk – to run away; flee; lam; take-it-on-the-lam, etc.
Do-a-Houdini – to escape; vanish, etc.
Do-a-solo – to operate alone.
Dock – the place in court where the prisoner stands.
Doctor-Hall – alcohol.
Dodge – hide; on-the-lam, etc.
Dodger – a person who is on the lam; a fugitive.
Dog – the lowest type person; a pigeon.
Dog-around – to follow or loiter so as to be a pest.
Dogeye – to watch suspiciously; eyeball.
Dog-it – to wait; hold back; refrain from participating.
Dog-robber – a boarding-house keeper.

45  
 
Dogs – feet.
Doing- all-of –it – serving a life sentence; doing-the-book.
Doing-easy-time – to make the best of a situation and not be
particularly concerned about anything.
Do-it-all – to do a life sentence.
Doll – a lovely chunk of feminine flesh; a beautiful quail.
Dommy – a place of residence; home; apartment, etc.
Donnicker – the male organ of copulation; penis.
Don’t-race-your-motor – don’t get excited; take it easy; slow down,
etc.
Door-rattler – a watchman who checks to see that all’s well and that
the doors are locked.
Dope – a stupid person; narcotics; to drug, as with narcotics, etc.
Dope-fiend – one who is addicted to the use of narcotics.
Dope-peddler – one who sells narcotics.
Dopey – a thief’s mistress; a dope-fiend; a lame-brain, etc.
Do-ray-me – money; cabbage; filthy lucre, etc.
Doss – a bed; to sleep.
Doss-house – a cheap lodging house.
Dossier – a bundle of documents, all relating to the same matter or
subject.
Dot-‘n-dash – mustache.

46  
 
Dotey – old; senile, etc.
Do-time – to serve a sentence in jail or prison.
Double – a key fashioned from the original for illicit use; one of the
same kind, etc.
Doublebank – to gang-up on.
Double-breasted-safe – a box with an outer and inner door.
Double-sawbuck – a twenty-dollar bill; a twenty-year sentence;
twenty, etc.
Dough – money.
Doughnut-philosopher – one who does not object to the doughnut-
hole getting larger, because it will take more dough to go around it.
Down-the-hatch – drink up, etc.
Down-under – below the Mason-Dixon line.
Do-your-own-time – a vitriolic blast used to let an inmate know he
had better tend to his own business and not concern
Drag – a slow train; a street or road; to do time in prison; a dance; a
puff, as on a cigarette, etc.
Dragnet – a system employed to apprehend criminals.
Drape – a suit of clothes; a fiddle, etc.
Draw – to get. “How much time did you draw?”
Dream-box – the head; noggin; melon, etc.
Dreamers – large, rectangular coverings; blankets.

47  
 
Dreams – the illusions of getting away from reality induced by the
use of opium or other dream-producing drugs.
Dream-way – the dope route, which is a living-hell.
Dress-out – to be fitted with a fiddle and other clothing for release
from prison.
Drill – to hit, wound, or kill, as with a missile discharged from a
weapon; shoot, etc.
Drink – any body of water; a rill; river; lake; ocean etc.
Drink-den – a place where intoxicating drinks are sold; saloon;
tavern, etc.
Drop – to be arrested; hit-the-dirt; fall, etc.
Dropper – a small dropping tube used by dope addicts in lieu of a
hypodermic outfit.
Druggist – a peddler of narcotics; a pill-twister.
Drum – a prison or jail cell; to sell, etc.
Drunkard – one who is habitually or frequently drunk; a liquor-
head; a lush, etc.
Dry – empty; thirsty, etc.
D-Ts – dilirium tremens; see “barrel-fever.”
Ducat, or ducket – a ticket.
Duck – a game which is out of date, but which caused many red
faces in the past. The inmates played cards for “ducks,” and the
loser was forced to recite a “duck” whenever the winner ordered. Of
course, they would pick the most embarrassing moments to force
48  
 
payment. The loser would be told to pay-up by standing-up in the
messhall, before officers, in the control-room, etc. A sample duck
went like this: “You’re my daddy, I’m your baby, I’m good for a f---
, and don’t mean maybe.” In sizing it up, it is obvious that many of
them would actually be stating facts in drooling off such a “duck.”
Ducker – one who is a fugitive; on-the-lam.
Dugout – a glutton; one who shoots-a-mean-stick; a heavy eater.
Duke – a person’s hand.
Duke-in – to donate; an introduction, etc.
Duke-mob – a strong-arm gang which employs fists as persuaders;
on-the-muscle.
Dummy – a person who is deaf and dumb; a deaf-mute; a stupid
person.
Dummy-chucker – a beggar who throws fake wingdings to impress.
Dummy-up – keep still; be quiet; clam; shut-up, etc.
Dump – to quit; double-cross. “Moe’s mouthpiece was forced to
dump him, in order to curry favor with the D-A.”
Dump-up – to beat-up; double-cross; betray; give the third-degree
or use extreme methods to obtain information from a suspect, etc.
Dungeon – any strong, close cell, especially underground; pit; hole,
etc.
Dust – money; tobacco; shoot; kill, etc.
Duster – a sheet-iron door located between the outer door and inner
compartment of a safe; also, an assassin; the buttocks.

49  
 
Dust-off – to shoot; kill; eliminate, etc.
Dutch-act – to commit suicide.
Dyer, the – The Dyer Act, which is a federal statute, making it a
felony to transport a stolen automobile interstate.
Dyke – a female homo; lesbian, etc.
Dynamite – a high explosive or nitroglycerin with some absorbent;
to blow-up or destroy with dynamite; dangerous; go fast, etc.
Dynamiter – one who employs dynamite to blow safes, vaults, etc.
Dyno, dino – one who works with dynamite or other explosives.
Eager-beaver – one who is always in a hurry.
Ear – a pigeon; informer, etc.
Early-black – the early part of the evening; dusk.
Earwig – a Filipino.
Ear-wiggler – one who attempts to curry favor; a mit-polisher.
East-‘n-west – vest.
Easy-time – one who takes prison life in stride and adjusts himself
without being particularly concerned. “Moe does easy-time.”
Eat-snowballs – to live up north during the winter.
Economic-argument – a soap-box orator’s prattle on the production,
distribution, consumption of goods, etc.
Edge – the advantage.

50  
 
Edge-work – a transaction which is on the shady side; not
completely legal, but enough so as to be within the law; slightly
kinky.
Eel – one who is slippery, tricky, shifty, deceitful, etc.
Egg – to push or force along; to entreat or exhort; a person, etc.
Eight-ball – a Negro.
Elbow – a policeman.
Electric-chair – the seat, or chair, which is wired for execution via
electrocution.
Electric-cure – execution via the “chair” which is accomplished by
electricity; electrocution.
Elegant – an escape from stir.
Elevate – a command which means “hands-up.”
Elevate-your-chalk – same as “elevate;” hands-up, etc.
Eliminate – to kill; get rid of, etc.
Embalming-fluid – inferior alcoholic concoctions; dehorn; derail,
etc.
Emergency-gun – an extra weapon such as a pistol, which is stashed
just in case of dire need.
Emperor – the supreme power; the boss.
Empty-can-caper – a pete-job where nothing of value was found.
Enamel – the external covering of the body; skin.
Equalizer – a blackjack, shootin’-iron, or any lethal weapon.
51  
 
Erase – to kill; bump; liquidate, etc.
Eraser – a weapon or person employed to bump; assassin.
Erie – to listen secretly to what is being said in private; eaves-drop.
“Moe tuned-in and was on-the-Erie.”
Eriff – a young thief.
Evil – a wife; any disagreeable person or thing.
Evildoer – anyone who commits a crime or operates contrary to law.
Evil-eye – one who casts a spell of bad luck on others.
Ex- – a prefix used to indicate a former status; ex-convict.
Execute – to do; put to death according to law, etc.
Exhibition-meal – a handout to a vagabond eaten on the madame’s
doorstep, by which she hopes to impress her neighbors with her
generosity.
Extra-gang – a crew of gandy-dancers other than the regular gang.
Eye – a Pinkerton detective; generally, any detective; a private-eye.
Eyeball – to look; stare; dogeye.
Eye-doctor – a moocher who can catch the eye of his mark and hold
it without quailing.
Eye-opener – a morning-after snort of giggle-soup to quiet the
frayed nerves; a surprise.
Face-artist – a pervert; muff-diver, etc.
Fade – to wager; bet; etc.

52  
 
Faded-bogey – a Negro informer.
Fag – a cigarette.
Fagin – one who trains boys and girls to be pickpockets, sneak-
thieves, etc; a fence.
Fagot – a road-kid; punk; homo, etc.
Fairy – a degenerate person; a homo; a fruiter, etc.
Fakeloo – a phony individual; not genuine; counterfeit, etc.
Faker – one who makes or deals in spurious articles, such as
jewelry; a jeweler; a phony, etc.
Fall – to be convicted of a felony; an arrest.
Fall-dough – money with which to employ an attorney or fixer; pay-
off money.
Fall-for-a-jug – to be convicted of bank robbery.
Fall-for-paper-hanging – to be convicted of passing or attempting to
pass spurious, or rubber-checks.
Fall-for-receiving – to be convicted of having stolen property in
one’s possession.
Fall-for-the-elevation – to be convicted of armed robbery.
Fall-for-the-heavy – to be convicted of safe-blowing, armed robbery,
or other major crime.
Fall-for-the-oil – to be misled by smooth conversation.
Fall-for-the-tools – to be convicted of possessing burglar tools.

53  
 
Fall-guy – one who is given or takes the rap for a crime committed
by anther.
Fall-in – to take one’s place; to arrive on the scene.
Fall-money – money with which to employ a mouthpiece or fixer;
fall-dough.
Fams – hands.
Fan – a waistcoat; also, to search the person of another by running
the hands lightly over the clothes to locate a purse, weapons, etc.; to
frisk.
Fanner – one who frisks.
Fanny – the area in the vicinity of the rectum; the rear-end.
Fanny Blair – hair.
Faro – a pasteboard game in which the player bets against the house
as to the order in which the cards will show.
Fawney – a circular band or ornament worn on the finger; a ring.
Fay – one of the Caucasian, or “white race;” a white person.
Fed-rap – a federal charge; time served or to be served in a federal
penitentiary.
Feds – federal law-enforcement officers.
Feedbag – a meal; to eat; nosebag.
Fell – was convicted of a crime.
Felony – any of various serious offences, such as burglary, murder,
etc.

54  
 
Fem – a female.
Femme-shill – a female decoy employed in gambling joints, etc. to
steer and assist in clipping the suckers; an accomplice.
Fence – one who deals in hot or caper goods.
Fer-it – to be agreeable; in favor of something, etc.
Ferro – arson.
Fetters – anything that restrains; to restrain; shackles; hand-cuffs,
etc.
Fibbing – striking with a fist; to distort the truth; to lie.
Fiddle – a suit of clothes.
Fiddle-‘n-flute – a suit of clothes.
Field-day – everything is running just rite; cleaning up, etc.
Fields-of-wheat – street.
Field-worker – a criminal who dabbles in any kind of caper.
Fifty-two, or Fifteen-two – a Jew.
Figure-dancer – one who alters the numbers or figures on bank
bills.
Figure-eight – an imitation spasm to get a shot of dope, etc.
Fill-in – an extra mug added to a gang for a special job.
Filling-station – a tavern or any place where liquor can be
purchased; a gas station, etc.

55  
 
Fillmill – a place where intoxicating liquors can be consumed; a
saloon.
Filthy-lucre – money, and particularly tat which is garnered
illegally.
Fin – five-dollars; a five-year prison term. “Moe’s doin’ a fin.”
Finger – to accuse; to implicate another in a criminal action; to case
a mark.
Finger’s-end – the percentage allowed for casing a job, usually ten-
percent of the take.
Finger-man – one who obtains detailed information for hoodlums
prior to execution of a caper.
Finger-mob – a gang employed to blot-out a person or persons who
have been fingered for a ride.
Fingerprint – an impression of the markings of the inner surface of
the last joint of the thumb or finger; to take the fingerprints of.
Fingy – inclined to be copper-hearted.
Finif – five dollars; the number five.
Fink – an informer; to inform; a pigeon, etc.
Fink-caper – a crime scheduled for execution of which the cops have
advance information from a pigeon.
Fire-drill – a line of inmates carrying out cell-buckets which are
used in lieu of commodes.
Fireproof-peter – an inferior safe used principally as protection for
records against fire.

56  
 
First-cabin – first class; A-No.-1; bonaroo, etc.
Fish – a new arrival in prison.
Fish-‘n-shrimp – pimp.
Fish-‘n-soup – dress suit.
Fishblack – Friday nite.
Fish-bull – a new prison guard or policeman.
Fishers, or fisheries – the missions, where the autumn-bawlers
attempt to save souls.
Fish-flimsy – a list showing diurnal arrivals in prison, together with
their numbers.
Fish-pole-burglar – one who operates with a pole and hook, as thru
transoms, etc.
Fish-tail – the motion of the rump, during a dance, or struggle.
Fish-tank – the cells reserved for and occupied by new arrivals in
prison.
Fit – a sudden acute mental illness, often manifesting itself in wild
conversation and acts. “Moe threw a fit.”
Five-spot – five dollars; a five-year prison sentence.
Five-yards – five-hundred dollars.
Fix – a shot of narcotics; to make favorable arrangements via bribe,
etc.
Fixer – one who, via bribe or influence, squares a beef or arranges a
reduction of charge or sentence, etc.

57  
 
Fix-up – a dose or shot of narcotics.
Flag – to thumb a ride; an alias. “What flag’s he flyin’ now?”
Flagged – to hail or be hailed for a ride, as by a hitchhiker, etc.
Flannel-mouth – one who continually runs off at the mouth with
foolish prattle.
Flapper – a frivolous young woman; a floozy, an ear, etc.
Flash – a glance; a sign of recognition; money, shown as a come-on,
as sucker bait, etc.
Flash-panny – a house frequented by rogues of both sexes.
Flat – a railroad flatcar; a naïve man not acquainted with the tricks
of rogues; a harness-bull; broke, etc.
Flatfoot – any officer of the law, usually a harness-bull.
Flathead – a person who is lacking between the ears; a dull-witted
person; dunce; dolt; numbskull, etc.
Fleas-‘n-ants – pants.
Flicker – to put on a fainting or sympathy act; a sign of recognition;
a moving picture show, etc.
Flimsy – a lit issued diurnally in stir, showing new arrivals, job
changes, cell changes, parolees, etc.
Flipper – an arm.
Flipping-a-rattler – boarding or leaving a moving train.
Float – to go away; to drift hither and thither.

58  
 
Floater – a roamer; an order to leave a town or state; a dead human
body found in water.
Floating – high on narcotics and oblivious to the realities of life.
Floating-game – a gambling game which is moved, sometimes every
day, to a new location to avoid detection.
Floater’s-parole – a parole which permits the parolee to go where he
pleases without the usual supervision.
Floorless-jig – an execution by hanging, as on a gallows.
Floozey – a frivolous young woman; a flapper, etc.
Flop – a bed; to go to bed; to be denied, etc.
Flop-dough – money with which to secure lodging in a cheap hotel
or flophouse.
Flophouse – a cheap hotel or rooming house.
Flop-worker – a thief who is so low he robs the riffraff while corked-
off in flophouses, etc.
Fluff – a wanton woman; generally loose; lascivious, lewd, etc.
Flunk – to fail.
Flunkey – a male waiter or servant.
Flute – the male organ of copulation; penis.
Flute-player – a pervert; a homo, etc.
Fly-away – a deserter from military service; an escapee.
Fly-cop – any police officer who operates in a prowl-car or other
vehicle.
59  
 
Fly-light – to travel with practically no baggage.
Fly-man – a detective.
Fly-right – to conduct oneself properly; to behave.
Fly-the-coop – to escape; to take it on-the-lam, etc.
Foam – fermented mash used for distilling liquor; brew; beer, etc.
Fobber – a pickpocket.
Fog – groggy; to shoot, etc. “He went for his heater as I fogged him.”
Folks – anyone, or those who are reliable and trustworthy.
Foofoo-dust – face powder which is loaded with aroma.
Foolish-power – narcotics or liquor which causes one to perform
strange antics.
Fool-monger – a con-man who specializes in clipping stupid persons.
Foreigner – one who has been convicted of a sex crime.
Fork – a pickpocket; give; let’s have it, etc.
For-kicks – for pleasure; for amusement, etc.
Forty – everything is O-K.
Forty-fives – pistols of forty-five caliber; also, beans.
Forty-four- a pistol of forty-four caliber; also, whore.
Fouled-up – in trouble; tangled up, etc.
Four-F’s – find ‘em, flop ‘em, frig ‘em, and forget ‘em.
Four-handed-mob – a caper crew consisting of four members.

60  
 
Fourth-of-July – a gun battle.
Fox – a person who is cunning, deceitful, sly, crafty, etc.
Fracture-your-toupee – to become mentally unbalanced; go crazy.
Frail – a female; twist; broad; girl, etc.
Frame – to arrange evidence, or manufacture evidence, so that an
innocent person looks guilty; the body.
Frame-up – that which is fraudulently prearranged.
Freebie – something for free, as a lump; a handout.
Freeman – one who is not incarcerated; a square-John; one entitled
to citizenship.
Freeze – a command which means, “stop and don’t move.”
Freezer – a shootin’-iron; any place of incarceration.
French – a perverted form of sex, accomplished by flute-players.
Fresh-fish – new arrivals in stir.
Friday-face – a dismal countenance, etc.
Friend – he is a friend who attendeth one at a feast, in affliction, in
famine, in disputing with an enemy, when in confinement, and in the
cemetery.
Frig – the act of copulation.
Frog-‘n-toe – the city of New York.
Frogskin – a greenback; folding money.
Frolic-pad – a spot where one can have a hilarious time.

61  
 
From-now-on – a life sentence; the book; doing-it-all, etc.
Frompy – unattractive; not pleasing to the eye.
Front – one’s appearance; a watch and chain; to act for another, etc.
Front-job – a situation where one acts for another.
Front-office – the warden’s office, etc.
Fruit – one who is queer; degenerate; nicknacks; lavender, etc.
Fruiter – one who is fruit.
Fry – to kill or execute by electricity; to electrocute.
Fu*k-up – one who is continually in trouble.
Full-of-larceny – one who is eager to garner dishonest money; an
kinky person.
Funky – distasteful; obnoxious, etc.
Fusebox – the head, noggin, melon, etc.
Fuzz – an officer or officers of the law.
Fuzz-face – same as “fuzz.”
Fuzz-tail – a detective or policeman.
Fuzzy-tail – one given to bragging; a braggart; also, a fem.
G – one-thousand dollars; a grand.
Gadding-the-hoof – traveling by foot.
Gaff – hardship or strain; cheap conversation, etc.
Gaff-joint – any cheap amusement spot.

62  
 
Gaffle – to grab; steal, etc.
Gagami – one who lacks courage; without guts; a coward, etc.
Gagers – eyes.
Gal – a girl; female; quail, etc.
Gallows – a wooden frame, consisting of a crossbeam on uprights on
which condemned persons are executed by hanging.
Galway – a priest.
Game – any dishonest scheme, trick, etc.; racket; willing; an square-
John, etc.
Gams – legs; usually used in referring to a woman’s legs.
Gan – the mouth or lips.
Gander – a married man living apart from his wife; to gaze, etc.
Gandy-dancer – a railroad section hand.
Gang – a group of criminals, etc.
Gangbuster – anything very powerful; an officer of the law.
Gangster – a member of a gang of criminals.
Gang-up-on – to use the combined strength of a group for some
specific purpose.
Gappin’s – to look; stare etc.
Garbage – jail or prison food; any inferior food, etc.
Gas-hound – one who imbibes in canned-heat, denatured alcohol,
etc.; a lush.

63  
 
Gat – a gun; usually small-arms such as a pistol.
Gates-ajar – the room in the administration building in which the
Board of Prison Terms and Paroles holds forth.
Gat-up – to rod-p and be ready for action.
Gay-‘n-frisky – whiskey.
Gay-cat – a lookout; one who stands point, etc.; a lively old woman.
Gawk – to stare stupidly.
Gazooney – a lad who is a passive sodomist; a guns’l.
Gear – one who is on the make for copulation; a lewd person; a male
or female homo, etc.
Gee – a person of the underworld.
Geek – a foolish or stupid man; a yokel.
Geetis – money.
Geezed-up – hopped-up on narcotics.
Geezer – a shot of narcotics; a man.
Gelter – money.
Gentry – the leading citizens.
George – everything is satisfactory; Jake; honkydory, etc.
German-bands – hands.
German-flute – a pair of boots.
Get – to hit; assault; scram, etc.

64  
 
Get-a-hinge – take a look.
Get-a-mark-noon – to have one’s application for parole denied.
Get-a-rumble – to be suspected, observed, etc.
Getaway – escape.
Getaway-map – a detailed map showing various escape routes.
Get-off-my-back – quit riding me; stop picking on me, etc.
Get-one’s-broom – to take a flight; to lam, etc.
Gets – an escape from stir; lams, etc.
Get-to – to make a contact with the one or ones in control.
Get-to-first-base – to make progress.
Ghost-story – an imaginary, but plausible story, usually concocted
by swindlers.
Ghoul – one who robs graves.
Ghow – narcotics.
Gifted-with-gab – a smooth conversationalist.
Gigg – the nose.
Giggle-soup – any intoxicating liquor.
Gilligan-hitch – to put on the pressure, as choking with an arm-
(unfinished definition)
Gimmick – a device with which a con-man fleeces a mark – the fake
money-making box was a dilly.

65  
 
Gin – an alcoholic beverage obtained by redistilling spirits with
flavoring agents such as juniper berries, orange peel, etc.
Gingerbread-door – the ornately-trimmed door of a safe which adds
nothing to its strength.
Gin-mill – any establishment that sells alcoholic beverages.
Ginney – an Italian.
Gip – to swindle or cheat; a swindler, etc.
Girl-scout – a term used in referring to a very feminine male.
Git-box – a musical stringed instrument with a long neck and a flat
somewhat violinlike bod; a guitar.
Give-‘em-the-works – prescribe all the law allows; work-over; blot,
etc.
Give-up – to surrender; fork-over, etc.
Glass – precious stones, particularly diamonds.
Glass-jaw – a weakling who is easily handled; a coward; yellow, etc.
Glim – an eye; look; see; a light or match, etc.
Glims – eyes; lights, etc.
Glim-worker – a phony optometrist who clips the gullible.
Glom – to steal; grab; gather-in, etc.
Glue – a term used in prison to describe food, particularly boiled
rice, and gravy.
G-man – an FBI agent.

66  
 
Gob – a hunk; the mouth; a seaman in the navy;
God-forbid – a young person; a kid.
Go-between – one who acts as agent between persons or parties.
Gobbler – a flute-player; homo, etc.
Goboon – a bowl used as a receptacle for spit; a cuspidor; a
spittoon.
Going-by-hand – to walk; on-the-hoof, etc.
Go-for – to be sold on; to have confidence in.
Go-getter – an ambitious, hard-working person; one who annoys the
social workers by writing to or calling on the wealthy contributors.
Going-on-the-farm – the train is going on the sidetrack.
Gold-braid – the officials such as lieutenants, captains, wardens, etc.
Gold-digger – a chiseling female who will sell her soul for filthy
lucre.
Golden-leaf – the best grade of marijuana, which is smoked in
cigarettes as a narcotic.
Gom – a police officer.
Gone-to-Korea – gonorrhea. “Moe’s got the gone-to-Korea.”
Gonif – a thief who has attained the ultimate of perfection in his
profession.
Good-head – an experienced criminal who can be trusted.
Good-people – a man who has been proven reliable and who usually
has good underworld connections.
67  
 
Goods – the evidence; loot, etc.
Good-time – the amount of time granted and deducted from an
inmate’s sentence, for good behavior, etc.
Good-time-card – a record kept by the prison officials, which shows
the inmate’s work record, conduct, etc.
Goof – a foolish or stupid person.
Goofball – any opiate that causes dullness, quiets the nerves, induces
sleep, etc.; a foolish or stupid person.
Goofer – any opiate that causes dullness, quiets the nerves, induces
sleep, etc.; a goofball.
Googoo – a Filipino.
Gooh – a harlot; prostitute, etc.
Goon-squad – a squad of bulls that shakes, searches, etc.
Goop – an inmate of penal institution; a stupid person.
Gooseberry-bush – clothesline, from which a vagabond replenishes
his wardrobe.
Goose-gun – a long-barreled shotgun with full choke.
Goosing-slum – a lewd fluff; a strumpet; a brothel, etc.
Gopher – one who digs tunnels; an iron safe.
Gopher-mob – a safe-robbing gang which specializes in cracking
into vaults from underneath; vault tunnelers.
Gorilla – a member of a criminal organization; a gangster; usually a
mug who does the dirty work, such as murder; a torpedo.

68  
 
Go-the-dutch-route – to commit suicide.
Go-through – to search a person or place.
Go-to-bat – to go to trial; to face the issue, etc.
Go-to-the-neck – to swallow the evidence when caught.
Go-to-town – to be very successful.
Go-south – to steal; hide, etc.
Governor Green – a southern expression meaning “liberty.”
Governor’s-leave – permission to do something such as attend an
outside funeral, etc.
Governor’s-stiff – a Governor’s pardon.
Gow – narcotics or liquor.
Go-with-the-birds – to go south for the winter.
Goy – a gentile; a mooch, etc.
Grab – to steal, arrest, etc.
Graduate – to complete a sentence in stir and be back on the bricks.
Grand – one-thousand dollars; G.
Grapevine – a mysterious route thru prison by which news travels.
Grass – the narcotic, marijuana, which is smoked in cigarette form.
Gravel – sugar.
Grave-robber – a con-man who preys on newly-made widows; a
ghoul.

69  
 
Graveyard-shift – the early morning hours.
Graveyard-stew – hot milk and toast.
Gravy – the profit; loot; the best, etc.
Graybacks – lice, crums, seam-squirrels, etc.
Grease – nitroglycerin; fix-money; to fix or pay-off; butter; to eat,
etc.
Greaseball – a dirty, unkept person.
Greasy-spoon – a cheap restaurant or slop-house.
Greef – an Indian hemp, whose dried leaves and flowers are used in
cigarettes as a narcotic; marijuana.
Grefa – same as “greef.”
Green-goods-game – a swindle involving the use of a fake money-
making machine.
Green-goods-merchant – one who deals in counterfeit money.
Green-hotel – a lawn which is used for resting or sleeping.
Green-light – the go-ahead signal.
Green-pea – a novice in crime.
Grift – to steal, but particularly to swindle.
Grifter – a confidence-man; a gentleman crook; a thief, etc.
Griddle – an uncomfortable spot. “The detectives have Moe on the
griddle.”
Grind – a difficult go; to work hard, etc.

70  
 
Groceries – the merchandise, loot, etc.
Groovy – exceptionally good; the best; bonaroo, etc.
Ground-sweat – a grave; to be buried, etc.
Growler – a can, pitcher, etc. in which beer is brought by
messenger.
Gull – one easily swindled; a dupe.
Gum – narcotics.
Gumfoot – any officer of the law, but usually a harness-bull.
Gummy – one who goes along but is slow on the draw when it comes
to paying.
Gump – a domestic fowl known as a chicken.
Gump-glommer – a chicken thief.
Gumshoe – any officer of the law, but usually a harness-bull.
Gun – a thief; to observe; a pickpocket; a hypodermic outfit;
shootin’-iron; a gunman, etc.
Gun-beef – a complaint charging one with a crime in which a
firearm was employed.
Gunboat – an armed vessel of light draft; also, a large shoe.
Gun-bull – an armed officer of the law. In prison, only those who
occupy towers or patrol the walls are armed—the bulls who mingle
with the inmates carry no arms.
Gunman – a man armed with a gun, especially to rob or kill.
Gun-mob – a gang of pickpockets.
71  
 
Gun-moll – the female companion of a gangster.
Gunnels, or guts – the rods or trucks beneath a boxcar where one
can hitch a ride.
Gunner – one who uses a gun.
Guns’I – a young boy; a novice; a green-pea; a punk, etc.
Gutter – one who shoots junk into the veins.
Gutter-lane – the throat.
Guy – a dark lantern; a man.
Guzzle – to choke; grab; to swallow liquor greedily; to drink much
and frequently.
Gyp – to swindle; cheat; a swindle; a swindler.
Gypo – one who swindles or cheats.
Gypsy-pace – face.
H – heroin; a derivative of morphine, used as a narcotic.
Habit, the – the dope habit; the habitual use of narcotics.
Habitch – a habitual criminal; one addicted to the use of narcotics,
liquor, etc.
Habitual – same is “habitch.”
Hack – an automobile; a prison guard or key; a watchman, usually
in the employ of a protective agency.
Hackum – one who uses a blade, as to assault.
Hair-trigger – nigger.

72  
 
Half-a-C – fifty dollars.
Half-a-check – half a dollar; a fifty-cent piece.
Hamlet – a small village; a captain of police.
Hammer-‘n-saw – jaw.
Hammer-‘n-tack – back.
Hamstring – to cut the tendon above the heel in order to avoid
arduous prison tasks.
Handcuff – a ring-shaped shackle for the wrist, usually one of a
pair, connected by a chain; to put handcuffs on.
Handle – a person’s name or nickname; moniker; the nose.
Handout – a parcel of food; a lump.
Hand-shaker – one who exerts himself to curry favor with those in
authority; a mitt-polisher, etc.
Hand-Dan – a man.
Handy-Mandy – dude.
Handy-wagon – a police patrol wagon.
Hang – to execute on a gallows, etc.; stretch-rope, etc.
Hangman – one who hangs persons condemned to death via a
gallows.
Hangout – a place where one lives or frequently visits; a gangster’s
headquarters, etc.
Happy-dust – narcotics which cause the users to become oblivious to
the humdrum life about them, until the awakening.
73  
 
Harangue – a passionate, vehement speech.
Hard-stuff – any high-voltage liquor; also, metal money; coins.
Hard-tail – an old mule, so named because he shows little respect for
the skinner’s whip.
Hard-time – one who cannot adjust himself to the rigors of prison
life, who frets constantly with the net result that he does “hard-
time.”
Hardware – weapons of any kind.
Hard-way – to constantly attempt to buck the tide rather than fall in
line with the accepted ways.
Harem – a women’s ward of a penal institution.
Harness – a setting for a diamond or other valuable stone; also, the
uniform and equipment worn by an officer of the law, etc.
Harness-bull – a uniformed policeman.
Harp – an Irishman; a nagging female; sometimes used in referring
to one of the Catholic faith, but not disrespectfully.
Harry – heroin.
Harvard-‘n-Yale – jail.
Hatchetman – a gorilla who kills for a fee; a torpedo, etc.
Haul, a – the loot, booty, or plunder taken in a caper.
Have-a-fall – to be arrested; to be convicted of a felony.
Have-the-drop-on – to have an adversary covered; to be in an
advantageous position.

74  
 
Hawkshaw – any officer of the law.
Hay – marijuana.
Haybag – a broken-down wench, etc.
Haywire – everything is fouled-up; no good, etc.
Headboard – a shelf, usually clamped to the head of a bunk in stir,
for radio, etc.
Head-end – the front end.
Head-sweeper – the warden of a prison; the brains; an inmate in
charge of cleaning and routine of a prison wing under the direction
of a wing-bull.
Heal – to arm, as with a pistol or other weapons; rod-up.
Healed – to be armed, as with a pistol or other weapons; rodded-up.
Heap – an automobile.
Heap-clouting – stealing automobiles.
Heap-o’-coke – bloke.
Heart-‘n-lung – tongue.
Heart-puller – a device for tearing combinations from safes; also, a
sad story.
Heat – attention of officials directed to a place, party, or parties, by
reason of suspicion that everything is not kosher; also, pressure.
“Moe put the heat on.”
Heater – any firearm, but usually a pistol; rod, etc.

75  
 
Heavy – any major caper such as murder, blowing safes, armed
robbery, etc.
Heavy-man – one who specializes in major capers.
Hebe, or heeb- a Jewish person.
Heel, a – an unreliable traitorous louse; a double-crosser; a sneak-
thief or shoplifter, etc.; also, to “heel” means to get going; lam, etc.
Heel-‘n-toe – get going; take-off; lam, etc.
Heeler – one who burglarizes hotel rooms; a sneak-thief.
Heifer-den – a house of prostitution.
Heist – a forcible stopping and robbing of a person; a hijacker.
Heister – one who forcibly stops and robs a person; a hijacker.
Heist-man – same as “heister.”
He-madame – a lesbian; a dyke, etc.
Hemp – marijuana; rope, etc.
Hemp-widow – a woman who has lost her husband by death via
gallows necktie-party and has not married again.
Henchman – a trusted confederate.
Hen-fruit – eggs.
Hep – wise; in-the-know; on-the-beam, etc.
Hide-out – a safe place for hiding from the law.
High – well loaded with lush or narcotics; lit-up, etc.

76  
 
Highball - -a mixture of morphine and cocaine; a drink of whiskey
or other liquid diluted with water, seltzer, or gingerale, and served
with ice in a tall glass; also, a whistled signal that a train is starting;
full speed ahead, etc.
Highballs – the plural of “highball;” plus a male giraffe.
Highbinder – a member of a loosely organized band of Chinese
criminals in the Chinese quarters of an American city who are
employed to commit assassinations or other outrages; a hatchet-
man; a ruffian, etc.
High-diver – a pickpocket.
High-pockets – a very tall man.
High-pressure – to convince, as with conversation and/or a
persuader.
High-pressure-salesman – one who employs weapons as well as
conversation to convince a dogmatic.
High-roller – one who spends most of his time at parties, night clubs,
etc.; one who gambles for high stakes.
High-stepper – one who spends most of his time partying, night-
clubbing, etc.
High-time – the sphere of big criminal operations; big-time; an
enjoyable time, etc.
High-toby – a highwayman; a heister, etc.
High-voltage – powerful, as high-voltage liquor, etc.
Highway-rap – a charge of highway robbery.

77  
 
Hijack – to steal, as from bootleggers or smugglers in transit, etc.
Hijacker – a thief who robs a thief; a highwayman; a heister, etc.
Hiker – one who forcibly stops and robs a person; one who raises
the prices; one who walks, etc.
Hincty – snobbish; arrogant; also, suspicious, etc.
Hindu – an honest person.
Hip – worldly-wise; in-the-know; clever; sophisticated, etc.
Hiram – a good whiskey.
Hi-roller – one who gambles for high stakes, particularly at crap.
His-nibs – a judge; a warden; a boss, etc.
Hist-man – one who forcibly stops and robs another; a hijacker.
Hit – scored; to strike; to beg; also, to kill.
Hitch – a bit, or term in prison; to catch; to steal, etc. “Moe just
completed a hitch and is back on the bricks.”
Hitchhike – to travel by walking, with occasional rides in passing
automobiles.
Hit-the-ball – to go full speed.
Hit-the-bricks – to get out of jail or stir and back on the streets.
Hit-the-deck – to fall to the floor.
Hit-the-dirt- fall flat; drop, etc.
Hit-the-gow – to be on narcotics.
Hit-the-hump – to escape from prison.
78  
 
Hit-the-jug – to drink heavily; to have a drink, etc.
Hit-the-kip – to go to bed.
Hit-the-ties – to travel via the railroad tracks.
Hitting-the-grit – to be forced off a moving train.
Hit-with-a-lily – to kill; erase; killed; erased, etc.
Hobo – the highest form of a genius vagrant.
Hobo-‘n-tin-can-route – the vagabond’s way of life, which consists
of his jungle homes, with his tin-can cooking utensils, bindle, etc.
Hobohemia – the universe of the hobo.
Hobo-limited – a fast freight train which usually hauls perishables;
a manifest.
Hobo-shortline – a slow local freight train.
Hock – to deposit as security, as for money borrowed; pawn.
Hockey – excrement; dung; baloney, etc.
Hockshop – the shop of a pawnbroker, pawnshop.
Hocus – trickery or description used by a con-man to clip a mark,
etc.
Hod – a pipe for smoking tobacco; a portable trough for toting
mortar, bricks, etc.
Hog – one who indulges in something excessively, especially food
and drink; a selfish person, etc.
Hoghead – a railroad engineer; a hogger.

79  
 
Hog-Latin – coined phraseology used in stir to convey a message,
and to confuse anyone on-the-Erie.
Hog-scraper – one whose occupation it is to give shaves, haircuts,
etc.; a barber.
Hogger – a railway engineer; a hoghead.
Hoist – to rob; shoplift, etc.
Hoister – one who robs, shoplifts, etc.
Hokus – trickery or deception used by a con-man to clip a mark.
Hold – a detainer placed on a prisoner who is about to be released
charging him with an offense for which he has yet to answer; detain,
etc.
Hold-court – to shoot-it-out with the law; a court session, etc.
Holding-heavy – well supplied with lucre.
Hold-out – to offer; to extend; to keep out as part of the take, as
from a caper, to withhold, etc.
Hold-over – temporary imprisonment en route to the big-house; to
postpone, etc.
Holdup – a forcible stopping and robbing of a person.
Hole – consists of punishment cells where inmates are locked-up as
penalty for breaking prison rules; the prison within the prison; a
ding abode; a dungeon, etc.
Holler – to confess; inform; squeal; sing; complain, etc.
Hollows – tuberculosis; T-B, etc.

80  
 
Homeguard – the local residents.
Homemade – anything made at home, and particularly synthetic
liquor, often under spurious labels.
Home-port – the city or location from which one operates.
Homicide – the killing of one person by another; also, the officers
who investigate murders, etc.; the homicide squad.
Homo – pertaining to or exhibiting sexual feeling for a person of the
same sex; a homosexual.
Honest-John – one who works for a living; a hoosier; a square-John,
etc.
Honest-shake – a square deal; with absolute verity, etc.
Honeymoon – the release f an inmate from stir, conditioned upon
good behavior, prior to the end of the maximum sentence imposed;
parole.
Honky – a factory hand; a menial, etc.
Hood – a criminal; hoodlum; mobster, etc.
Hoodlum – a racketeer; gangster, etc.
Hoofs-‘n-horns – hash; a dish of chopped meat, potatoes, etc.
Hook – to catch; a pickpocket; to steal; a knife, blade, shiv, etc.;
also, a safety razor.
Hooked – one who has become addicted to the use of drugs, etc.;
addicted to, or having a craving for anything. “Moe is hooked for
that twist.”
Hooker – a prostitute, a street-walker, etc.
81  
 
Hooks – steals; gloms; to discharge; to cause trouble. “The mob put
the hooks to Moe.”
Hookshop – a house of prostitution; a brothel, etc.
Hookup – a connection; a tie-in with a gang, etc.
Hooligan – a policeman; a stupid fellow, etc.
Hoop – a finger ring; the rectum; ring, etc.
Hoop-peddler – one who sells spurious rings; also, a punk.
Hoosegow – a place of incarceration; a jail or prison.
Hoosier – an honest citizen; a person who works for a living; a
credulous person, etc.
Hootch – a distilled or spirituous beverage, as brandy, whiskey, etc.
Hoot-nanny – a cross between a hoot owl and a nanny goat.
Hop – opium; any stupefying drug; to travel; jump, etc.
Hop-dog – one who is badly addicted to the use of drugs, especially
opium.
Hop-gun – a hypodermic-outfit.
Hophead – one addicted to the use of drugs.
Hop-hog – one who is addicted to the use of drugs, and bad,
especially opium.
Hop-joint – a spot where narcotics are sold and consumed.
Hopped-up – enthused; happy; under the influence of narcotics,
liquor, etc.

82  
 
Hop-the-cut – increase, as the hose-take from gambling tables;
dilute more; weaken, etc.
Horizontal-exercise – to lie down; the act of copulation, etc.
Horn – a telephone; the nose; to force, etc.
Horse – corned beef; a powerful or huge person; to play, etc.
Horse-joint – a spot where bets can be laid on the nags with a
bookmaker, etc.
Hose – the act of copulation; to drench with water, as with a hose,
etc.
Hot – stolen or illegal merchandise; wanted by the law; angry, etc.
Hot-as-a-45 – wanted and bad by the cops; sizzling, etc.
Hot-boiler – a stolen automobile.
Hot-bonds – stolen or spurious securities.
Hot-car-farm – a hide-out where stolen heaps are doctored for sale.
Hot-car-rustler – one who gloms heaps for a hot-car-farm.
Hot-chair – the electric chair, used to fry the condemned; hot-seat,
etc.
Hotel-de-Gink – a free lodging house.
Hot-for – enthusiastic about; in favor of, etc.
Hot-for-a-cannon – a dangerous sport for a pickpocket to work.
Hot-grease – fresh nitroglycerin or soup.
Hot-hack – a stolen automobile; a hot-heap, etc.

83  
 
Hot-heap – a stolen automobile; a hot-hack, etc.
Hot-minute – a very short period of time; a split-second, etc.
Hot-one – inciting to lust; a good one, as a joke, etc.
Hot-or-cold – alive or dead.
Hot-paper – spurious checks, bonds, paper money, etc.
Hot-prowler – one who burglarizes homes at nite.
Hot-seat – the electric chair, used to fry the condemned; the chair,
etc.
Hotshot – a fast train which usually carries perishables, a wise guy,
etc.
Hot-spot – a lively place; a dangerous position, etc.
Hot-squat – the electric chair, used to fry the condemned.
Hot-stuff – stolen goods; a willing fluff, etc.
Hot-tongue – conversation which is loaded with invectives,
lampoons, etc.; caustic; sarcastic, etc.
Hot-trap – same as “hot-tongue.”
Hot-trick – a sizzling quail, usually sleazily gowned and copulatively
inclined, etc.; a good joke, etc.
Hot-wire – a wire thru which electric current is circulating.
Houdini – to do a Houdini is to escape.
House – a term used in referring to a brothel, gambling joint, etc.;
also a home, etc.

84  
 
Housebreaker – one who breaks into and enters a house with a
felonious intent.
House-dog – one who goes about hunting menial jobs such as
cleaning windows, beating carpets, etc.
House-take – the cut, such as taken by a house-man from pots in
cards, etc.
How-strong-are-you? – how much money are you holding?
Huey – conversation which is manufactured and false; baloney, etc.
Hump – a mountain, hill, etc.; copulation.
Hundred-proof – refers to good whiskey; bonaroo.
Hunk-of-flesh – a well-proportioned quail.
Hunky-dory – everything is satisfactory; O-K, etc.
Hunt-a-wampus – to waste energy; a wild-goose chase.
Hunting-whip – an instrument of torture for administering lashes.
Hush-money – money paid or to be paid for “silence;” blackmail.
Hustler – an ambitious person; a thief; one who lives without
working; a harlot, etc.
Hut – a small, rough or humble dwelling; a house.
Hyge – a narcotic user.
Hygelo – one addicted to the use of narcotics.
Hype – one addicted to the use of narcotics; to tease, rib, etc.
Hype-a-person – to needle; rib, etc.

85  
 
Hypo – a shot of narcotics; one who uses drugs.
Hypodermic – of or pertaining to parts under the skin; a
hypodermic-outfit, etc.
Hypodermic-injection – an injection into the subcutaneous tissues.
Hypo-stick – a shot of narcotics via hypodermic-injection.
Ice – protection money paid to politicians; also, precious stones,
particularly diamonds, cold, etc.
Ice-box – a refrigerated room where the deceased are kept, as in a
hospital, etc.
Ice-house – a place where the bodies of persons found dead are
exposed so that they may be identified or claimed; a morgue.
Ice-payments – gifts to cops or politicians.
Idiot-stick – a shovel, hoe, mop, etc.
Idle-poor – inmates of a penal institution.
Idle-your-motor – calm down; take it easy, etc.
Ignoramus – one who is disagreeable and highly annoying; stupid,
etc.
Ignorant – for ignorant; lacking knowledge, learning or
information.
I’ll-buy-that – I agree with you; it’s O-K with me, etc.
I’m-afloat – soap.
In – an entrance; an introduction; a part of, etc.
In-a-tight – on the shorts; in need of assistance.
86  
 
In-hock – under obligation to another; in debt, etc.
Innocent – free from any moral or legal wrong; guiltless.
Inside – in prison; in on the know; secret, etc. “Moe elicited the
inside data.”
Inside-man – a safe-cracker who understands the mechanics of a
safe; a dishonest employee who furnishes vital information to
hoodlums, etc.
Insider – one to whom confidential and secret data is available; one
who belongs, etc.
Institutionalize – to acquaint with the idiosyncrasies of prison life,
etc.
Interview-slip – a form of request by inmates for this and that, and
which goes through channels for action.
In-the-air – don’t know; undecided, etc.
In-the-clear – not suspected; safe; free, etc.
In-the-dough – having plenty of lucre.
In-the-know – one who has gained inside information; an intelligent
person, etc.
In-the-pen-‘n-ink – in the pink; in good fettle, etc.
Intimate – a shirt; private; personal; maintaining illicit sexual
relations; a friend or associate, etc.
Irish-lasses – glasses.

87  
 
Iron – any weapon from which a shot is discharged by an explosive,
usually applied only to small-arms such as rifles, pistols, etc.; hard,
adamant, etc.
Iron-house – a jail or penitentiary; a repository for arms, etc.
Iron-rule – the governing by a strict disciplinarian who metes out
punishment with sadistic delight.
Island, the – the federal penitentiary, located on McNeil’s Island in
the state of Washington.
Iso – confinement in cells which are set apart from the rest as
punishment cells, within a prison; isolation; a special block of cells
reserved for housing fish during their first weeks in prison.
I-suppose – the nose.
Italian-football – a projectile filled with a bursting charge, exploded
by a fuse, by impact, or otherwise; a bomb; a pineapple, etc.
Ivory-band – hand.
Ivory-reefs – teeth.
Jabber – one who uses narcotics via the hypodermic-injection;
nonsensical chatter, etc.
Jaboney – to charge it; credit; on-the-cuff, etc.
Jack – to practice sexual self-gratification; to masturbate; money.
Jack-‘n-Jill – a till or cash register.
Jack-cove – a mean, low fellow.

88  
 
Jacket – an inmate’s prison record; a heavy canvas torture
contrivance which cuts off circulation and causes excruciating pain
when pressure is applied; a strait-jacket.
Jack-Horner – corner.
Jack-Mohoffey – coffee.
Jack-rabbit-parole – to escape from prison; to get rabbit-legs, etc.
Jackroll – a roll of folding money.
Jack-scratch – match.
Jacob – any structure of wood, metal, or rope, commonly consisting
of two side-pieces between which a series of bars are set at suitable
distances, forming a means of ascent or descent; a ladder.
Jag – a state of extreme stimulation, as produced by liquor, drugs,
etc.
Jailbait – girls who are under the legal age of consent; San Quentin
quail, etc.
Jailbird – one who is or has been confined in a jail or prison.
Jailhouse-inspector – an inmate who keeps coming back to prison,
where he plays the part of a big-wheel, usually on the lavender side;
a recidivist, etc.
Jake – Jamaica ginger, used as a substitute for liquor; everything is
satisfactory; hunky-dory, etc.
Jakehead – one addicted to the use of Jamaica ginger.
Jallopy – an old rattletrap automobile; a term used in describing a
broken-down female; a blister, etc.

89  
 
Jam – to enliven a composition by impromptu variations and
improvisions; trouble; in-a-tight; a female, etc.
Jamoke – coffee.
Jam-session – a meeting of musicians for a spontaneous and
informal performance of swing music without scores; a period of
conversation during which “trips” are taken, etc.
Jam-up – the best; O-K; bonaroo, etc.
Janosco – the male organ of copulation; penis.
Java – coffee.
Jay – a bank; a big-top; a cell-block, etc.
Jawbone – credit; on-the-cuff, etc.
Jaypee – a Justice of the Peace.
Jazz – to unite in sexual intercourse; copulate; dance music, usually
of a “hot” improvised nature, with syncopated rhythms; lively, etc.
J-B – a hat by Stetson; a bonaroo hat; jet black, etc.
Jerusalem-slim – a minister; parson; autumn-bawler; sky-pilot, etc.
Jesus-guy – a mission-stiff who professes to “get” religion in order to
obtain food and shelter; one who goes to church to create an
impression.
Jesus-stiff – same as “Jesus-guy.”
Jew-cove – one whose profession it is to conduct suits in court or
give legal advice and aid; a lawyer.

90  
 
Jewelry – handcuffs; shackles; chains, etc.; articles made of gold,
silver, precious stones, etc. for personal adornment.
Jew’s-eye – a pleasant sight.
Jig – a member of the Negro race; a colored person.
Jigger – a 1/2-oz. measure used in cocktail recipes; a warning; the
office, etc.
Jigger-man – one who acts as lookout and gives the office when
necessary; point-man, etc.
Jigs – a warning or office given by a point-man, jigger-man, etc.
Jim Crow – a practice or policy of segregating Negroes, as in public
places. Etc.
Jim Magee – key.
Jimmy – a pry-bar; to pry open, etc.
Jimmy Bracken – stop crackin’; don’t talk, etc.
Jimmy Dalt – salt.
Jimmyheel – a rude, boorish person of the pigeon variety.
Jimmy Hope – soap.
Jimmy Rill – a till or cash register.
Jim-the-deal – to upset or spoil the performance or arrangements.
Jinny – a place where intoxicating liquors are sold without a license,
contrary to law; a blind-pig; a speakeasy; a fluff, quail, etc.
Jitney – an automobile which carries passengers for a small fare; an
automobile.
91  
 
Jive – the talk of swing enthusiasts; swing music, etc.
Jo – coffee.
Job – a specific assignment, caper, etc.
Jocker – a queen’s man; the “buster” part of a sod-buster; homo,
etc. (It is the consensus that if they’ll pitch, they’ll catch)
Joe – person, fellow, etc. “Moe’s a good Joe.”
Joe Goss – boss.
Joe Hoke – smoke.
Joe-the-grinder – a cad who moves in when the husband or boy-
friend is absent.
John – a hoosier; yokel; a stupid person, etc.
Johnny O’Biren – a boxcar; an enclosed and covered freight car.
Joint – a penal institution; a hangout, and particularly one used by
criminals; an opium smoking outfit; a penis, etc .
Joker – a hidden clause in a paper, document, etc. which largely
changes its apparent nature; a silly person, etc.
Jolt – a shot of narcotics; a slug of liquor; a term in prison; a shock,
surprise, etc.
Jomer – a woman who illicitly occupies the place of a wife; a
mistress.
Joseph – a patched coat; a sheepish, bashful fellow.

92  
 
Joseph’s-coat – that which guards against temptation, in some
inexplicable manner. “They can’t deduce him, ‘cause he wears a
Joseph’s coat.”
Joskin – a man of one’s own country; a countryman.
Joybox – a musical instrument in which hammers, operated from a
keyboard, strike upon metal strings; a piano; a muff, etc.
Joy-hemp – the narcotic, marijuana.
Joy-house – a house of prostitution; a dive where opium derivatives,
marijuana, etc. are sold and used.
Joy-powder – any of the class of substances that blunt the senses and
often used habitually to satisfy morbid appetites, but with ghastly
consequences.
Joy-route – the dope way, which consists of being a user of opium or
any other stupefying drugs; to be addicted to the use of narcotics.
J-P – Justice of the Peace.
Jug – a bank; jail; bottle, etc.
Jug-heavy – a person who specializes in blowing bank vaults,
robbing banks, etc.
Jug-rap – to be charged with or convicted of a bank caper.
Jug-rooter – one who specializes in blowing bank vaults, robbing
banks, etc.
Juice – any intoxicating beverage; liquor.
Jump – to travel; to unite in sexual intercourse; copulate, etc.

93  
 
Jumper – a wire used to shoot or jump the current in any electric
hook-up; a rapo.
Jump-high – rotgut liquor; dehorn, etc.
Jungle – a place where hoboes congregate to cook, wash clothes,
sleep, etc., usually located on the outskirts of a town, near […]
Jungle-buzzard – a bindle-stiff who frequents he jungles.
Jungler – one who lives in the jungles; a vagrant.
Jungle- up – to live as the bindle-stiffs do, in the jungles; to cock-up
food.
Junk – all forms of narcotics; cheap jewelry; anything of little value,
etc.
Junked-up – under the influence of narcotics.
Junker – one who peddles narcotics; a user of narcotics.
Junk-hound – one addicted to the use of narcotics.
Junkie – one addicted to the use of narcotics.
Junk-peddler – one engaged in the illicit business of selling
narcotics.
Junky – one addicted to the use of narcotics.
Kangaroo – to subject one to a kangaroo-court.
Kangaroo-court – a mock court trial in jail, designed to clip the new
arrivals, or fish; an authorized court which is conducted with a
disregard for legal procedure.

94  
 
Kangarooed – one who has been subjected to a kangaroo-court, and
the findings thereof.
Katy- a hat.
Kay – all right; correct; O-K, etc.
Kayo – knockout, as in a prize fight; K-O or k-o; to win; O-K, etc.
Kee-bird – a rare bird which strays north and then sticks its head
under its wing and hollers “kee-rist, it’s cold.”
Keeler – a thief who specializes in rolling drunks.
Kefauveritis – that mysterious ailment which criminals and
politicians were afflicted with prior to being subpoenaed, and which
manifested itself in unexpected heart attacks, nervous breakdowns,
appendicitis, etc.
Keister – an oblong valise or suitcase; the area in the vicinity of the
rectum; the hind-end; a safe, etc.
Kelt – money.
Ken – a house.
Khaki-wacky – one who goes for men in uniform.
Kick – a trousers pocket; trousers; the recoil, as a firearm when
fired; complain; a good feeling; something that gives pleasure, etc.
Kick-apart – to rip open; to separate; to destroy, etc.
Kickback – a response; that which is paid or returned to another,
etc.
Kick-it-around – think it over; discuss it, etc.

95  
 
Kick-over – to take; rob, etc. “So we kick-over the joint.”
Kicks – shoes; complaints; pleasure; satisfaction, etc.
Kick-the-habit – to quit something that has become habitual, such
as dope, liquor, etc.
Kick-thru – to pay off; give in; confess; give information, etc.
Kid – one who is regarded by a wolf as prey for his homo activities;
to tease, jest, fool, etc.
Kiddies – young thieves; youngsters, etc.
Kidnap – to steal or abduct, as a child or other person, often for
ransom.
Kike – a Jew; one of the Hebrew or Jewish people.
Kill – to cause the death of; slay; to cancel; defeat; veto, etc.
Kill-joy – anything that spoils the pleasure of others; a policeman,
etc.
Kinky – not honest; bent; curved, etc.
Kip – a piece of furniture upon which a person sleeps; a bed.
Kip-dough – money with which to secure lodging.
Kirk-buzzer – a pickpocket who capers in churches.
Kisser – that part of the mouth which comprises the lips; one who
kisses; the face, etc.
Kiss-off – to abandon; to forget; kill, etc.
Kiss-the-roots – to meet with a violent death; also ?

96  
 
Kitchen-mechanic – a domestic servant; one who works in a kitchen,
etc.
Kite – a letter or note, usually an illegal communication; carry, etc.
Kitten – a very young female; a girl.
Klink – a public building for the confinement of safe custody of
criminals and others committed by law.
Knock – to make a criminal complaint; to criticize, etc.
Knock-a-fade – go away; leave; scram, etc.
Knockers – a woman’s breastworks; teats; bumpers, etc.
Knock-me-dead – bread.
Knock-off – to rob; arrest; kill, etc.
Knockout-drops – chloral hydrate or other hypnotic used to induce
sleep; prison coffee, etc.
Knock-over – to rob; arrest; kill, etc.
Knock-up –to cause one to become pregnant.
Know, in the – worldly wise; to know what it’s all about; to have
inside information, etc.
Knowledge-box – a building in which a school is conducted; a school
house; the head.
Know-the-score – to be aware of criminal plans and schemes; in-the-
know, etc.
Knuckle-interview – a meeting in which fists are used to lend force
to a settlement, etc.

97  
 
Knuckler – a pickpocket; one who uses knucks.
Knucks – a weapon designed to wear on the hands; brass-knuckles.
K-O, or k-o – a knockout, as in a prize fight; to win; O-K, etc.
Kosher – fit, lawful, or ritually permitted according to the Jewish
dietary law; genuine; the best; bonaroo, etc.
Kyke – a Jew; one of the Hebrew or Jewish people.
Labor-skate – an official of a labor union.
Lace – a well-dressed, well-proportioned and desirable fem.
Laced-mutton – a female who lacks class; a common-looking
woman.
Lady – a female who cultivates those with social rank, wealth, etc.
and is condescending to others; a snooty snob.
Ladybird – a woman who illicitly acquires the place of a wife; a
jomer; a mistress, etc.
Lady-lover – a female homo; a dyke; lesbian, etc.
Lag – to move slowly; fall behind; throw; pitch; fling; toss, etc.
Laker – a stiff that is in or has been found in water; a victim of
drowning.
Lam – to run away or escape. “Take it on the lam.”
Lamb – a naïve person; a wolf’s kid, etc.
Lambing – on the prowl for a kid, using candy, etc. as bait.
Lamb’s-fry – tie.

98  
 
Lambster – one who flees; a fugitive; an escapee, etc.
Lamp – to see; observe, etc.
Land-of-manna – to be secure financially; in-the-chips.
Land-pirate – a highwayman; heister; hijacker, etc.
Larceny – the wrongful taking and carrying away of goods of
another.
Lark – a merry adventure; a prank; to have fun; a caper, etc.
Lash – to strike or beat, usually with a whip; to bind or fasten with a
rope, cord, etc.
Last-waltz – an execution by hanging.
Latch – to grab, hold, seize, etc.
Latrine-orderly – a privy cleanup man in the army; same as capt’n-
of-the-head aboard ship; Chief Sanitary Engineer in stir.
Laughing-academy – an insane asylum; a booby-hatch, etc.
Laughing-water – any distilled or spirituous beverage, as brandy or
whisky; pruno, etc.
Laughing-weed – an Indian hemp, whose dried leaves and flowers
are used in cigarettes as a narcotic; marijuana.
Lavender – queer; apples-‘n-pears; fruit; degenerate; nicknacks,
etc.
Law – any peace officer any rule or injunction that must be obeyed.
Lawless – contrary to law; uncontrolled by law, etc.

99  
 
Lawn-mower – a small-arm, operated by a mechanism, able to
deliver a rapid and continuous fire of bullets; a machine-gun; a
type-writer, etc.
Lay – to unite in sexual intercourse; copulate; to wager; bet; set a
trap; devise, etc.
Lay-down – the lucre with which to purchase; to lie down and
smoke opium, etc.
Lay-in – to stay in, as in a cell; to place in reserve, etc.
Laying-the-note – the short-change racket, in which the perpetrator
confuses the party who makes change, as on a purchase; passing
queer or counterfeit money.
Lay-in-state – to serve a prison sentence.
Layer – same as “layer-down.”
Layer-down – one who passes or attempts to pass spurious money.
Lay-off – to put a stop or end to; stop; end; quiet, etc.
Layout – the equipment for smoking opium; a watch and chain; an
arrangement or plan; the description, etc.
Lay-paper – to pass or attempt to pass rubber-checks, counterfeit,
etc.
Lay-your-racket – explain; talk; give a complete explanation of your
operations, etc.
Lead – a comparatively soft, malleable bluish-gray metal; a bullet;
shot; that which a male has stored up for copulation.

100  
 
Lead-in-his-pencil – to be loaded and ready for copulation;
ambitious.
Lead-poisoning – to be killed as a result of having been shot.
Leaf – to inspect; check; to thumb thru the pages; autumn, the third
season of the year, between summer and winter.
Leak – to seep out; to become known undesignedly; to pass urine;
urinate.
Lean-‘n-fat – hat.
Lean-‘n-linger – finger.
Leap – to jump; the legal union of a man and woman for life;
wedlock; marriage.
Leather – a small case for papers, money, etc.; a pocketbook; a whip
of leather, used to dish out punishment.
Leatherhead – lacking or not showing ordinary activity and
keenness of mind; stupid, etc.
Leather-puller – a pickpocket.
Leave – to escape; lam; also, permission to do something; as
Governor’s leave, which is granted in deserving cases for inmates to
attend outside funerals, etc.
Lee-of-a-reefer – in the vicinity toward which the pungent smell of
marijuana drifts; the side of a refrigerator railroad car which is
protected from the wind.
Left-britch – left pants pocket.
Left-chalk – on the left.

101  
 
Left-handed-wife – a woman living with a man but not married to
him.
Left-pratt – left, rear pants pocket.
Legal – appointed, established, or authorized by law.
Legaler – a formal declaration or contract with which a man and
woman join in wedlock; a marriage license, etc.
Leg-bail – to escape from incarceration.
Leg-irons – an arrangement of fetters, designed to restrain, and
employed at times when transporting prisoners, etc.
Legit – that which is authorized by law.
Leg-puller – one who resorts to flattery, etc. with ulterior motives.
Lemon – that which is inferior; a disappointment, etc.
Lesbian – a female homo; a dyke.
Let-daylight-in – to hit, wound, or kill with a missile discharged
from a weapon; to blast; drill; cut, etc.
Let-him-have-it – shoot him; slug him, etc.
Level – to be honest in dealings; also, to destroy, etc.
Lever-man – an inmate in charge of a corridor of cells, who locks
and unlocks doors, keeps catwalk clean, etc.; a cell-tender.
Lib – to take the rest afforded by a suspension of the voluntary
exercise of the bodily functions and the natural suspension of
consciousness; to sleep.
Library-birds – down-and-outers who loaf and roost in libraries.

102  
 
Lid – a cover; hat; castor, etc.
Life-dead – to feign death.
Lifeboat – a commutation of sentence; parole; pardon, etc.
Life-preserver – weapons which may be used for protection.
Lifer – one sentenced to stir for life.
Lift – to take something wrongfully, especially secretly; steal; a
stimulant, etc.
Light-a-rag – to set a fuse burning so as to set off a charge of soup or
other explosive.
Light-artillery – small-arms, such as pistols.
Lighthouse – a stingy person.
Lights – the third degree, during which one is subjected to
questioning under brilliant lights- rather nerve-racking, I hear.
Lily – a term used to denote death.
Lily-whites – large, rectangular pieces of linen, cotton, etc. used as
bedding; sheets; hands.
Lime-bath – a mixture of unslacked lime and water, which produces
calcium hydroxide, and which is used to destroy evidence such as
bodies, etc.
Limey – an Englishman.
Limpy – one who is partially deprived of the use of one or more of
his limbs.

103  
 
Line – same as “line-up;” also, conversation which is usually
manufactured and false; baloney.
Line-up – a show-up of prisoners before the law, witnesses, victims
of crimes, etc. for possible identification.
Lingo – coined phraseology used in stir to convey a message and to
confuse anyone who happens to be on-the-Erie.
Lip – a mouthpiece; lawyer; also, back-talk, etc.
Liquidate – to kill; bump; erase, etc.
Liquor – a distilled or spirituous beverage, as brandy, whiskey, etc.
Liquor-head – a chronic alcoholic; a drunkard, etc.
Little-bitch – a long prison sentence which is invoked because of
prior convictions. “They slapped Moe with the little-bitch.”
Little-brother – a heroin tablet.
Little-house – a reformatory or minor correctional institution.
Little-Joe – a four-year prison hitch; four.
Little-red-wagon – a police patrol wagon, used to haul prisoners to
jail, etc.; paddy-wagon.
Little-school - a reformatory or minor correctional institution.
Little-Siberia – the punishment cells which are set apart in a prison;
a prison within a prison.
Lit-to-the-gills – stiff-as-a-plank; drunk; high.
Lit-up – well loaded with lush, narcotics, etc.; high.
Live-one – a hoosier; one who spends freely; a mark, etc.
104  
 
Liver-‘n-lung – tongue.
Livestock – small, wingless, usually flat insects, which are parasitic;
lice; crimson-ramblers, etc.; also, females.
Live-wire – an energetic, alert person; also, a wire thru which
electricity is flowing.
Lizzie-louse – an officer of the law who patrols by car.
Lizzie-tramps – migrant workers, often whole families, traveling in
broken-down crates, etc.
Loaded – under the influence of; well supplied with; loaded, as a
firearm, etc.
Lobster – an ungainly, uncouth person.
Lock, in – locked up in solitary confinement for breaking prison
regulations.
Locker – any place of incarceration.
Lock-up – a jail; to be incarcerated, etc.
Loco – mentally unbalanced; insane; rubber-chain material.
Lodge, the – the Montana State Penitentiary, located at Deer Lodge.
Loft – any upper story of a warehouse, mercantile building, or
factory.
Loft-worker – one who specializes in burglarizing lofts.
Loid – a tool employed by burglars, consisting of a celluloid strip,
designed to beat locked doors.
Lone-wolf-robber – one who capers alone.

105  
 
Long-con – a confidence game which may require weeks of
preparation before the sucker is ready for clipping.
Long-green – paper currency.
Long-rod – a shoulder firearm; a rifle.
Long-straw – belt.
Long-timer – one who has served, or has to serve a long sentence in
stir.
Looker – a good-looking female, who is well-stacked, well dressed,
etc.
Lookout – one who is stationed to give the office when necessary, as
during a caper; point-man, etc.
Loose – not subject to restrictions; on the bricks; free; not strict.
Looseners – weapons, designed to get one to talk; threats.
Lord’s-supper – jail or prison food.
Loser – an ex-convict; one with a prior conviction.
Lost – no longer living; dead; that which one has failed to win; no
longer to be found; wasted; destroyed.
Lotto – a game played by drawing numbered discs and covering
corresponding numbers on cards.
Louse – a lowdown character who will injure even those who
befriend him; an informer; a stool, etc.; a crum.
Louse-bag – a piece of furniture upon which a person sleeps; a bed;
kip; bunk, etc.

106  
 
Love-note – a United States legal-tender note, usually printed in
green on the back; a greenback; a warning; threat, etc.
Lower-deck – the bottom bunk of a two-bunk arrangement; the
bottom.
Lower-the-boom – to cause trouble.
Lucre – gain or money as the object of sordid desire; money.
Lug – one who is none too intelligent; a simpleton, etc.; to carry.
Lug, put the – to beg or borrow with no intention of repaying. “Moe
put the lug one me for a jug.”
Lump – a portion of food, as given to a beggar; a handout.
Lump-of-lead – head.
Lung-ward – a division of a hospital, or the like, where T-B patients
are housed and treated.
Lush – a chronic alcoholic; a stew-bum; liquor.
Lusher – one who robs or rolls drunks; a chronic alcoholic; a drunk.
Lushhound – one addicted to the use of alcoholic beverages; a
drunkard.
M – a bitter crystalline alkaloid, the most important narcotic
principle of opium, used as a narcotic; morphine.
Mab – a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money as a
livelihood; a prostitute.
Mac – one who ministers to the baser passions of others; a pimp; a
pander.

107  
 
Macaroni-bender – of or pertaining to Italy, its people, its language,
etc.; an Italian.
Mace – a clublike weapon.
Machine-gun – a small-arm operated by a mechanism, able to
deliver a rapid and continuous fire of bullets.
Mack – one who lives off the earnings of prostitutes; a pimp; a
pander.
Madam – a woman in charge of a brothel.
Made – to be detected; observe; rank, etc.; also, copulated. “Moe
made the broad.”
Madhouse – an asylum for the insane; a place of commotion, etc.
Madman – an insane person; one who has blown his cork, etc.
Magazine – a metal receptacle for cartridges in certain types of
automatic weapons, etc.
Main-guy – the leader; boss; captain, etc.
Mainline – the large veins.
Main-line – regular; the regular main group eating in the dining
room. Those engaged in special work usually eat on the shortlines.
Mainliner – one who takes narcotics in the large veins, or mainline.
Mainline-shot – a shot of narcotics in a large vein.
Main-push – the boss.
Main-stem – the principal business street in a town or city.
Make – to recognize; defraud; seduce, etc.
108  
 
Make-a-person – to identify one.
Make-a-riffle – to complete a deal; connect, etc.
Make-a-spread – to lie down with opium outfit and smoke; to make
a display, as of food, liquor, etc.
Make-a-town – to visit a town; to exploit a town to the hilt, etc.
Make-the-boast – to speak exaggeratedly about oneself; to brag; to
threaten, etc.
Make-the-flop – go to bed.
Make-the-queer – to manufacture counterfeit money; to clip the
degenerate after posing as prey.
Malarkey – tall stories; lies, etc.; bull, etc.
Man – to take one’s place for service, as at a gun; a male follower,
subordinate, employee, etc.
Mañana – tomorrow; the indefinite future, etc.
Man-catcher – any officer of the law; a flatfoot, etc.
Maniac – raving with madness; a lunatic.
Manifest – a fast freight; to show plainly; a list of a ship’s cargo for
the use of custom-house officers, etc.
Man-killer – one who undertakes to murder, usually for a reward;
one who has committed murder.
Mann, the – the Mann Act, which is a federal statute, making it a
felony to transport females interstate for immoral purposes.

109  
 
Marbles – the soft mass of nerve substance which fills the cranium
of man and other vertebrates; brain.
Marble-town – a cemetery.
Marijuana – an Indian hemp, whose dried leaves and flowers are
used in cigarettes as narcotic; laughing-weed, etc.
Mark – a victim or proposed victim; a sucker; a place designated for
a caper.
Market-for-stiffs – a kinky broker or fence who deals in hot bonds;
a stiff-joint; a dealer in cadavers.
Marking – waiting; observing; checking, etc.
Mark-noon – the liberation of a person from prison, conditioned
upon good behavior, prior to the end of the maximum sentence
imposed upon that person; a parole.
Married – a situation which is considered to exist when two
homosexuals are together constantly; united in wedlock.
Mary – a bitter crystalline alkaloid, the most important narcotic
principle of opium, used to dull pain, induce sleep, etc.; morphine.
Mary Ann – an Indian hemp, whose dried leaves and flowers are
used in cigarettes as a narcotic; marijuana.
Mask – an alias; a covering for the face for disguise, and sometimes
worn on capers to make identification difficult; a false front.
Mat – a female; fluff; frail, etc.
Maud-C – a bitter crystalline alkaloid obtained from coca leaves,
used as a narcotic; cocaine.

110  
 
Maup – a broken-down blister; a bag, etc.
Max – the maximum time to which one is sentenced by a judge.
Mazuma – money.
McCoy – the real thing, as genuine liquor; nitroglycerin, for blowing
safes; anything genuine; bonaroo.
Meal-ticket – a person whom one latches on to for a livelihood; an
existence; a job; a card sold by restaurants at a discount, to be used
for purchases.
Medic – a doctor or medical aid.
Meet – an assembly, as a group of hoodlums; a meeting; welcome;
experience; encounter, etc.
Melon – a person’s head; cabbage; pumpkin, etc.
Melt – to give up as thru fear; to co-operate; to shudder, etc.
Menagerie – any jail or place of incarceration.
Merry-ol’-soul – hole.
Meshuga – crazy; mentally unbalanced; laughing-academy material,
etc.
Mezz-roll – fat sticks of hand-rolled marijuana, with the ends
tucked in.
Mezz, the – the best brand of marijuana; bonaroo, etc.
Mickey – a half-pint flask.
Mickey – a drink to which a sleeping drug has been added.
Mickey Finn – same as “Mickey.”
111  
 
Middle – a situation in which one becomes the fall-guy, or is
blamed; something intermediate.
Mile-or-more-bird – a rare bird, peculiar in that it buries its head in
the sand and whistles thru its wump so you can hear it for a mile or
more.
Milk – to take more than one’s share; to drain; to draw milk as
from the udder of a cow or other animal; a nourishing white liquid,
as from a cow.
Milk-‘n-cream – dream.
Milk-shakes – a woman’s breasts; teats; dairy; breast-works, etc.
Mill – a mechanical writing machine; a typewriter; also, to move
about confusedly.
Min – the minimum time to which one has been sentenced.
Mince-pies – eyes.
Minnehaha – any distilled spirituous beverage; laughing-water, etc.
Mired – to be in a situation from which escape is difficult; stuck.
Misbehave- a shave.
Misbehave-‘n-an-ocean-wave – a shave and massage.
Misdemeanor – an offense less serious than a felony.
Missionary – any propagandist; an autumn-bawler.
Missionary-act – to mewl a phony profession of religion to create an
impression.

112  
 
Mission-stiff – a habitué of skidrow who eagerly gets “saved” in
order to secure a lump and a flop.
Mistress – a woman who illicitly occupies the place of wife; a jomer.
Mit-glommer – one who attempts to curry favor by catering to those
in authority; an ear-wiggler.
Mit-polisher – same as “mit-glommer.”
Mitt – a hand; to shake hands; a glove, etc.
Mob – an organization or gang of crooks.
Mob-gee – a member of an organization or gang of crooks.
Mobster – a gangster; a member of a mob or criminal organization.
Moll – a female companion of a thief, vagrant, gangster, etc.
Moll-buzzer – a thief who picks women’s pockets; one who steals
from women.
Moll-whiz – a female pickpocket.
Molt – to give up something under pressure.
Money – greenbacks; also, gold, silver, or other metal in pieces of
convenient form stamped by public authority and issued as a
medium of exchange, and measure of value.
Monicker, or moniker – a person’s name or nickname.
Monk – a public officer authorized to hear and determine causes in
a court of law; a judge; also, a man who has withdrawn from the
world from religious motives.
Monkey – a sucker; hoosier; a loose quail, etc.

113  
 
Monkey-chaser – a person of the Negroid race; a Negro.
Monkey-suit – any uniform, and particularly a policeman’s
uniform.
Moo – an opaque white liquid secreted by the mammary glands of
female mammals, serving as nourishment of their young, and in the
case of the cow and some other animals, used by human beings as
food; milk; a cow.
Mooch – to obtain without paying at another’s expense; to beg; a
beggar.
Moocher – one who begs; a beggar; a panhandler, etc.
Mooch-the-stem – to make the main street, begging for charity.
Moon – the body which revolves around the earth monthly,
accompanying the earth in its annual revolution about the sun; a
month.
Moon, or moonshine – smuggled or illicit distilled liquor, usually
homemade.
Moons – the twelve parts into which the calendar year is divided;
months.
Moose-milk – raw moonshine liquor; any inferior distilled spirits.
Mop-‘n-pail – jail.
Mope – to be low in spirits; dejected; go away; get going, etc.
Moper – a bum who is one rung lower than a moocher; one who
mopes.

114  
 
Mop-Mary – a woman hired for odd jobs of domestic work; a
charwoman.
Morph – a bitter crystalline alkaloid, the most important narcotic
principal of opium, used as a narcotic; morphine; M.
Mort – a female human being.
Moses – a man who fathers another’s child for a price.
Moss – the natural covering of the human head and of the body of
most mammals; hair.
Mother-‘n-daughter – water.
Mountain-oysters – lamb testicles.
Mourner’s-bench – the seating accommodations for those waiting to
answer to the brass for infractions of stir rules.
Mouth – conversation; talk, etc.
Mouthpiece – one whose profession it is to conduct suits in court or
give legal advice and aid; a lawyer.
Move-in – to take over; to assume control, etc.
Mow – an ugly fluff; to kiss; to eliminate; kill, etc.
Moxie – patient courage under affliction, privation, etc.; fortitude;
courage; guts, etc.
M-P – Military Police; member of Parliament; melting point, etc.
Mrs. Moore – floor.
Mr. Whiskers – any federal officer of the law.
Muck – filth; dung; dirt; also, to clean.
115  
 
Mucket – a wig for a woman’s bald-headed muff.
Mud – coffee; also, the inspissated juice of a poppy, containing
morphine; a stimulant narcotic; opium.
Mud-kicker – one addicted to the use of opium.
Muff – the private and secluded region of a female in which a muff-
diver indulges in his perverted pleasure.
Muff-diver – one who indulges in perverted sex, as to a woman.
Mug – a crushing armlock; a gangster; a police photograph; to
photograph; the face.
Mug-burg – a town in which even those arrested for minor offenses
are photographed and fingerpainted.
Muggies – marijuana cigarettes.
Mugging – a caper in which the mark is assaulted; to strong-arm.
Mug-wump – a rare bird, which when resting, sits with its mug on
one side of a limb and its wump on the other.
Mule – homemade distilled spirituous liquor; moonshine; also a
stubborn person.
Mulligan – a stew containing meat and vegetables; a high-powered
rifle.
Mumbly-pegs – legs.
Munie – a municipal lodging house.
Muscle – to scheme, devise, plot, contrive, shoot-a-curve, etc., and
use sheer brawn where necessary.

116  
 
Muscle-man – a strong-arm mug who puts on the pressure.
Muscle, on the – to make one’s way by sheer brawn, with muggings,
etc.
Mush – to kiss; the face. “The fluff slapped Moe’s mush.”
Mush-faker – a disguise artist.
Music – a “not guilty” verdict; a parole; pardon; good news.
Muta – the marijuana narcotic.
Mutt – a dog, especially a mongrel; also, a simpleton; a stupid
person.
Muzzler – one who puts the quietus on another; an assassin.
Mystery-food – a mess or jumble; hash.
My-uncle – one who lends money at interest on pledged personal
property.
Nab – to catch or seize suddenly; arrest, etc.
Nag – a horse; a woman who is battered and worn; torment, etc.
Nail – to catch; arrest, etc.
Nail-a-rattler – to hitch a ride on a fast freight train.
Native – a local citizen; the term I usually used to mock or ridicule.
Natural, a – a perfect set-up, as for capering; just right.
Near-‘n-far – bar.
Near-sighted-shack – a brakeman who is myopic and can see
distinctly at only short distances.

117  
 
Necklace – a loop with a running knot as in a lasso, which tightens
as the rope is pulled; a noose.
Necktie-party – an execution by hanging, as on a gallows.
Needle – to prod or goad; to tease or heckle; a sharp, hollow
instrument used to puncture the skin, as in a hypodermic-injection.
Needle-artist – a “user” who takes narcotics via the hypodermic-
injection.
Negro – a member of the Negro race; colored.
Nest – a snug retreat, such as an apartment; a bed.
Ne’er-do-well – a worthless person.
New-man – a fish; one who has just recently arrived in stir; a
stranger.
Newspaper – a thin paper used in rolling cigarettes; a cigarette
paper.
Nick – to trick, cheat, or defraud; hit; crease, etc.
Nickel – a five-year prison sentence; a five-cent piece.
Nickel-note – a five-dollar bill.
Nickey – the chief evil spirit; the great adversary of man; the devil;
Satan.
Nicknacks – queer; degenerate; lavender; fruit; homp, etc.
Nigger-rich – one who has recently acquired money and spends it
unwisely.
Night-key – a prison guard who works nites.

118  
 
Nip – a small drink of liquor; a sip; a sharp or biting remark.
Nitro – a colorless, highly explosive oil, a principal constituent of
dynamites and certain propelling and rocket powders; nitroglycerin.
Nitwit – one who is mentally lacking; a peanut-brain; a slow-witted
or foolish person.
Nix – no; nothing; a signal of warning of someone’s approach, etc.
Noble – a guard who protects strikebreakers.
Noch – a Hebrew shelter for homeless men.
No-dice – not interested; I-won’t-buy-that; no sale, etc.
Noggin – the head; breezer; cabbage, melon, etc.
No-go – same as “no-dice.”
No-good – a term used to describe a pigeon; worthless, etc.
Noise – dynamite or nitroglycerin, used for blowing safes, etc.
Nol-pros – to decline to prosecute.
Non-com – a noncommissioned officer.
Nope – no.
North-‘n-south – mouth.
Nose – a police spy; a detective; an informer; the part of the face
which contains the nostrils; to meddle; move forward; a projecting
part, etc.
Nosebag – a paper-sack lunch; to eat; scoff, etc.

119  
 
Nose-candy – a narcotic which is obtained from the coca leaves, and
which can be taken by sniffing; cocaine.
No-soap – same as “no-dice.”
Notch-house – a house of prostitution; a brothel.
Note – notice; notoriety; publicity; of importance, etc.
Numbers-racket – a scheme for raising money, by the sale of a large
number of tickets, certain among which, as determined by chance
after the sale, entitle the holders to prizes.
Nut – the expenses; the noggin; one mentally off-balance; a
dingaling, etc.
Nut-college – an insane asylum; laughing-academy, etc.
Nut-factory – an insane asylum; chuckle-box, etc.
Nuts – mentally deranged; crazy, etc.; an expression of defiance,
disgust, etc.
Nuttery – a hospital for the mentally ill; a booby-hatch, etc.
Nympho – a woman who has a morbid and uncontrollable sexual
desire; a nymphomaniac.
Oakus – a small bag, pouch, or case for carrying money on the
person; a purse.
Obey – to comply with commands or instructions, etc.
O-B-U – one big union.
Ocean-wave – a massage or treatment for the face; a facial.

120  
 
Ochre – currency which may be lawfully offered in payment; legal
tender; money.
Odd-fellows – doughnuts and jo.
Ofay – one of the Caucasian, or “white race;” a white person.
Off-his-rocker – one who is utterly senseless; a ding, etc.
Ogle – to look at with amorous or familiar glances.
Oil-can – a bottle which contains liquor.
Oiled – under the influence of liquor; well-loaded.
Oil-of-mustard – a pungent liquid to derail bloodhounds, which will
not follow an oil-of-mustard trail.
O-K – all right; approval and agreement; K-O.
Oke – same as O-K.
Old-black-Joe – toe.
Old-fireball – the star which is the central body of the solar system
around which the planets revolve and from which they receive light
and heat; the sun.
Old-gee – an elderly mug of the underworld.
Old-man – a warden; a chief of police; the boss, etc.
Old-man’s-home – an easy prison where one has various privileges;
a playhouse.
Old-smoky – a pistol or other small-arm.
Old-Stanley – a safety pin.

121  
 
Oliver – the moon; a small-arm, etc. “Lay low until Oliver blows.”
O-my-catarrh – cigar.
O-my-dear – beer.
On-a-trip – to take one on-a-trip is to tell a flowery story of
experiences or fancied situations, etc.; a story.
One-eyed-Connelly – a gate crasher; to participate without paying,
etc.
Ones-‘n-twos – shoes.
One-way – selfish, inconsiderate, etc.
One-way-ticket – a life prison sentence; the book; execution, etc.
On-tag – a trusty who can go outside the walls without a guard is
on-tag.
On-the-beam – hip; in-the-know; intelligent, etc.
On-the-boost – engaged in shoplifting, etc.
On-the-carpet – to be reprimanded; a severe reproof, etc.
On-the-crock – indulging excessively in liquor.
On-the-cuff – on credit; charge it, etc.
On-the-dodge – avoiding contact with the law.
On-the-Erie – to listen secretly to what is being said in private;
eavesdrop, etc.
On-the-gow – using opium or derivatives thereof; an addict.
On-the-hammer – one who is on the bum but not down and out.

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On-the-heavy – specializing in major capers, such as holdups;
blowing petes, etc.
On-the-hock – in debt.
On-the-hype – using narcotics.
On-the- lam – a fugitive from justice.
On-the-legit – engaged in honest endeavor.
On-the-make – intent on consummating a caper; can be had, etc.
On-the-muscle – to make one’s way by sheer brawn, with muggings,
etc.
On-the-nut – in debt; charge it, etc.
On-the-Oregon-short – to be financially embarrassed; without
funds, etc.
On-the-pen-‘n-ink – engaged in writing phony paper; unreliable,
etc.
On-the-peter – to be engaged in safe-capers.
On-the-point – to be acting as a lookout.
On-the-prowl – on the watch for, as for an easy touch; capering;
looking around, as for pleasure, etc.
On-the-spot – to be placed in a guilty situation; caught, etc.
On-the-stem – to be engaged in begging for a living.
On-the-stuff – to be addicted to the use of narcotics.
On-the-uppers – on the bum and nearly down and out.

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On-the-whizz – to be engaged in the business of picking pockets.
Opium – the inspissated juice of a poppy, containing morphine; a
stimulating narcotic; living Hell.
Orangutan – an ungainly, uncouth, ill-mannered person.
Oregon, the – the Oregon boot, which is a leg-cuff or leg-iron, and is
employed as special precaution against escape, particularly when in
transit.
Oscar – a narrow-minded, bigoted person.
Oscar-Hocks – socks.
O’Shaughnessy-pardon – to escape from prison; to beat-the-joint; a
bush-parole, etc.
Ossified – inebriated; stiff-as-a-plank; drunk, etc.
Out – an excuse; dismissed; bad terms, etc.
Outfit – an organization; a gang; the equipment for hypodermic
injections, etc.
Outside – any place outside the walls; outside a building, etc.
Outside-man – a lookout who stands point, as during a caper, etc.
Overboard – to be completely sold; hooked, etc.
Overnight-caper – a crime committed during the nite.
Over-the-hill – escaped; ran away; lammed, etc.
Owl – one who capers or carouses at the nite.
Owner’s-job – a caper such as an owner arranging to have himself
robbed, split with the hoodlums, and collect insurance to boot.
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Ox – a large, powerful, and usually bullheaded person.
O-yes – to cry out, as an expression of pain, surprise, agreement,
etc., especially under pressure.
Oyster-float – coat.
Oyster-malted-milk – a “Dennis Day Special” – probably has to do
with pencils, leads, etc.?
Pack – to carry contraband within prison, such as goofballs, lumps,
confidential data, etc.; to carry.
Package-of-joy – a willing and luscious hunk of frail quail;
narcotics, etc.
Pack-in – to cram the noggin with knowledge by utilizing stir-time
for studying; to carry in.
Packing-the-mustard – one who carries mortar, bricks, etc. in a hod.
Pad – a dull sound as of footsteps on the ground; to travel by foot; a
joint; a place of enjoyment; a bed, etc.
Padded – exaggerated; inflated; walked, etc.; “Moe padded his
expense account.”
Padding-ken – a house in which lodgings are let; a rooming-house; a
lodging-house, etc.
Padding-the-hoof – walking the streets; going by foot, etc.
Paddy – an officer of the law; a policeman, etc.; a hand.
Paddy-wagon – a police patrol wagon, used to haul offenders and
suspects to jail, etc.
Pain-killer – a well-placed air-hole, as from a bullet, shiv, etc.
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Pain-reliever – narcotics; alcoholic beverages, etc.
Palace-sleeper – one who slumbers in a clean, comfortable bed, such
as in a first-rate hotel, a home, etc.
Palooka – a punch-drunk fighter who lives a dreamy past; a stupid
person, etc.
Pan – the front part of the head; face; to criticize or reprimand
severely, etc.
Pander – one who ministers to the baser passions of others; a pimp.
Panel-game – a caper in which the mark is lured to a spot, and his
clothes are frisked and cleaned while he is otherwise engaged, etc.
Panhandle – to ask for as in charity; to beg.
Panhandler – one who makes a business of begging.
Panny – an abode such as a house, apartment, or other shelter that
is a fixed residence of a person.
Pansy – an effeminate male of the homo variety; a queer, etc.
Paper – checks, stocks, bonds, etc.; to cover, etc.
Pappy – a respectful term used in referring to an elderly man.
Pappy-rouster – one who specializes in robbing old men.
Paralyzed – stiff as a plank, as from overindulgence in liquor, etc.
Parlor-house – a house of prostitution of the more snooty type,
where the merchandise is on display and where selections are made.

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Parole – the liberation of a person from prison, conditional upon
good behavior, prior to the end of the maximum sentence imposed
upon that person.
Parole-officer – one who supervises those on parole, etc.
Parole-violator – one who has violated the terms of his parole.
Partner – one associated with another or others, as a partner-in-
crime, etc.
Pass – to circulate; to go thru, as a barrier; to go unheeded; a free
ticket; to make an amorous overture gesture, etc.
Passer – one who passes or attempts to pass rubber-checks,
counterfeit, etc.
Pass-out – to become unconscious, as from an overload of liquor,
etc.; to die.
Paste – to strike or beat soundly; to work-over, etc.
Pasteboards – tickets; also, a set of small cards with sports, figures,
etc. for certain games; cards.
Pat – to stick to one’s position; stand pat; to strike lightly as with the
hand. “Moe patted her fanny.”
Paternity-racket – the illegal trafficking in babies for lucre.
Patriot – a chump who endeavors to be a hero, attempts to thwart a
caper, and often gets hurt.
Patsy – a quiet, diffident fellow.
Paul Bunyan – an interesting person who is a chronic liar.
Pave – the pavement, sidewalks, etc.; prepare.
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Pawnbroker – one who lends money at interest on pledged personal
property, etc.
Pawnshop-detail – a detective branch of the police department,
whose function it is to check at regular intervals with pawnbrokers
to see if caper-goods have been hocked, etc.
Pay-off – the results; the finish; a share of loot; bribe-money, etc.
Pay-off-mob – a gang of hoodlums assigned to settle scores, etc.
Pay-station – a social welfare agency that gives out money, etc.
Pay-streak – to have a run of good luck.
Peanut-brain – one who is lacking mentally; a nitwit, etc.
Peanut-farm – a workhouse where the inmates make little stones out
of big ones.
Peanuts – a small amount of that filthy lucre.
Pearl-diver – one whose job it is to wash dishes, etc.; a dishwasher.
Pea-soup – a French Canadian; a lumberjack, etc.
Peddler – one who deals in narcotics; one who sells, etc.
Pedigree – the police record of an individual.
Peepers – the organs of sight; the eyes.
Peg – to identify or recognize; to place a wooden pin or peg between
the door and jamb of a spot under observation by a burglar, to see if
the place is being entered.
Peg-house – a male whorehouse where homos cater to degenerate
males.

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Peg – a penitentiary; to write, etc.
Pen-‘n-ink – pink; feeling fine, etc.
Penman – one adept at making fraudulent imitations; a forger.
Pen-name – the flag, often an alias, under which an inmate is
serving time.
Pennies – a small amount of money.
Pennsylvania-salve – apple butter.
Penny-one – a single penny.
Pen-yen – the urge or desire to write phony checks, etc.
People – a term used to indicate that one is reliable and trustworthy.
Peoria – thin soup; general, potato-water and seasoning.
Pepper-bird – a rare bid which has red pepper growing out of its
wump, and for that reason flies backwards to keep from burning
up.
Perform – to beg; mooch, etc.; to go into one’s act, etc.
Perfumer – a stink-bomb. “The lobby reeked from the exploded
perfumer.”
Persuader – any weapon with which to put on pressure, such as a
club, sap, gun, shiv, etc.; one who convinces, etc.
Precaution – a measure taken beforehand, such as casing, to ward
off trouble, etc.
Pet – an inmate co-operator who receives special consideration; to
fondle or caress, etc.

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Pete – a steel or iron box for money, jewels, papers, etc.; a safe.
Pete-busting – safe-cracking.
Pete-man – one who specializes in robbing safes; a box-man, etc.
Pete-rap – a charge, or conviction for safe-cracking, etc.
Petered-out – exhausted; worn out; tired, etc.
Phony – counterfeit; fraudulent; fake; also, a squealer, etc.
Phony-man – one who peddles cheap jewelry; a slum-peddler, etc.
Phony-rap – a charge in which manufactured evidence has been so
arranged as to make an innocent person look guilty.
Pick – a pickpocket; to steal; to open, etc.
Pickets – teeth; choppers; dishes; plates, etc.; those who stand or
march by a place of employment, as during a strike.
Pick-up – to take; that which is picked up, such as a meal; a willing
quail, etc.
Picture – a photograph; fingerprints, or other evidence left at a
scene of crime, by which one can be identified.
Picture-frame – a wooden frame, consisting of a crossbeam on two
uprights, on which condemned persons are executed by hanging; a
gallows.
Piddle-around – to play around; just passing time, etc.
Pidge, or pigeon – a spy for the police, employer, etc.; informer.
Pie-card – a worthless character who loafs and sponges.
Piece – a portion; a rifle; a sample of sex, etc.
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Piflicated – inebriated; stiff-as-a-plank; blotto, etc.
Pig – a policeman; a lewd blister; a glutton, etc.
Pigeon – a spy for the police, employer, etc.; informer, stool, etc.
Pigeon-joint – a place of incarceration where the brass use stools to
keep in touch with what’s-cookin’ – they are generally loathed even
by the officers who use them.
Pig-iron-dump – a hardware store.
Pig-iron-joint – a hardware store.
Pig-Latin – coined phraseology used in stir to convey a message, and
to confuse anyone on-the-Erie.
Pig’s-vest-‘n-buttons – sow-belly or any fat bacon.
Pike – a street or highway; a long-shafted, sharp weapon; to pierce,
wound or kill, as with a pike.
Piker – one who gambles or operates in a small end cautious
manner; a contemptibly cheap person, etc.
Pilfer – to steal, especially in small quantities.
Pill – a cigarette; an opium pellet prepared for smoking; a dull
person, etc.
Pill-peddler – a druggist; a croaker; a dope-peddler, etc.
Pill-shooter – a doctor; croaker, etc.
Pill-twister – a druggist; doctor; crocus, etc.
Pilot – the boss; the steersman of a ship, etc.

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Pimp – one who ministers to the baser passions of others; a pander;
a pink-cuff, etc.
Pinch – the take a person into custody for legal proceedings; arrest,
etc.
Pinch-hitter – an inmate informer who seeks to curry favor with the
powers that be; one who acts for another, etc.
Pineapple – a projectile filled with a bursting charge, exploded by a
fuse, by impact, or otherwise; also, lumps on the head, etc. as from
an assault.
Pine-drape – a box for planting a stiff; a coffin.
Pinhead – a stupid person.
Pink – young and tender; also, leaning toward the homo.
Pink-cuff – one living off the earnings of a harlot; a pander; a pimp.
Pinkerton – a detective of, or the Pinkerton National Detective
Agency.
Pin-shot – an injection of narcotics, administered with the aid of
crude tools, such as a pin and medicine dropper, etc.
Pint-peddler – one who bootlegs liquor; a bootlegger, etc.
Pipe – to see or hear; to give an alarm; to speak; utter; sound-off; a
smoking contraption, etc.
Pipe-dream – any fantastic notion, story, etc.
Pipe-one-off – to tell one off; to blow one off, as a safe; to pull a
caper, etc.
Pirate – one who robs or commits illegal violence at sea; a thief.
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Pistol-route – specializing in capers such as stickups, in which the
pistol is employed.
Pistol-whip – to work-over, using a pistol as a bludgeon.
Pit – any strong, close cell, especially underground; the hold; a
dungeon, etc.; to oppose, etc.
Pitch-a-bitch – throw a good one; to raise Hell, etc. “Let’s go out
and pitch-a-bitch.”
Pitch-‘n-pine – shine.
Pitch-man – one who sells goods, as on the streets, in doorways; a
peddler, etc.
P-K – principal keeper; a warden; boss, etc.
Place – a headquarters; a duty; to straighten out; to finish second, as
in a race.
Plain-clothes – a member of the police force whose function it is to
obtain information and evidence as for offenses against the law; a
detective.
Plant – to put away for safekeeping, as in a prepared place; stash;
bury, etc.
Plaster – a warrant of arrest; butter; money, etc.
Plastered – inebriated; loaded-to-the-grills; drunk, etc.
Plate – a steel plate beneath refrigerated railroad car where one can
hook a ride in comparative safety; a sheet of metal upon which
engravings are made; teeth.

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Plated-hack – a bulletproof automobile, specially constructed to
provide protection.
Plates – a set of false teeth; dishes; pickets; choppers, etc.
Plates-of-meat – feet.
Plate-travel – to travel by freight train; riding a plate.
Play – to engage in diversion, recreation, amusement, etc.; easy; to
make a try, etc.
Playhouse – a prison where inmates enjoy various privileges; an old-
man’s home, etc.; a house of entertainment, etc.
Play-the-iggy – to feign stupidity; act dumb, etc.
Pleasure-bent – bowlegged; in search of pleasure, entertainment,
etc.
Plow-the-deep – sleep.
Plug – to shoot; a man; a horse, etc.
Plunder – to rob, pillage, fleece, etc.; loot.
Plunge – to go on a begging or panhandling expedition; to fall; to get
married, etc.
Plush – the very best; bonaroo, etc.
P-O – post office; the pay-off racket, etc.
P-O-box – a post office safe.
Poge – a male homo.
Pogey – an institution or place where sick or injured persons are
given medical or surgical treatment; a hospital.
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Point – on the lookout for police, etc.; any definite position; show; a
degree or stage; a hint, etc.
Point-man – a lookout, employed by criminals engaged in capering;
a jigger-man, etc.
Poison-joint – the store of a druggist; a drug store.
Poke – a pocketbook; wallet; to strike, etc.
Poke-picker – a pickpocket.
Pokey – any jail; prison; place of custody, etc.
Pokey-stiff – one who spends much of his time in prison, seeming to
prefer stir-life to the outside; usually of the homo variety.
Police-storm – a deluge of cops that unexpectedly swoops in as to
interrupt a caper, etc.
Political-vermin – a term used by Senator Toby in denouncing a
grafting Louisiana sheriff; grafting politicians.
Politician – a big-wheel, or bon-con in stir – these wheels are geared
to run on tracks within the walls – outside, they go unnoticed, except
by the police.
Ponce – a kept man; a pimp, etc.
Pop – a shot of narcotics; to pawn; strike, etc.
Pop-in-the-mainline – a shot of narcotics in the main veins.
Pops – a short firearms, intended to be held and fired with one
hand; a pistol.
Pop-shop – a pawnshop, where a pawnbroker lends money at
interest.
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Porch-climber – a burglar who enters by scaling, as to the second-
story of a home, etc.
Posse – a body or force armed, with legal authority.
Possesh – a wolf’s kid, with whom he indulges in abnormal sex
relations.
Possum-belly – the boxes under passenger cars where one can hitch
a ride.
Pot-‘n-pen – can.
Potato – a girl; fluff; quail, etc.
Pot-of-glue – Jew.
Poultice-route – a lump, consisting of bread and milk.
Pounder – a cop who patrols a beat by foot.
Pound-your-ear – sleep soundly.
Powder – take it on-the-lam; run away, etc.
Powder-monkey – a person who is in charge of handling explosives.
P-R – personal recognizance.
Prairie-schooner – a rattletrap heap which is about ready for the
junk-yard.
Pratt – the rear end; the wump of a mug-wump, etc.
Pratt-kick – a hip pocket.
Prattle – foolish chatter.

136  
 
Prayer-bones – the joints in persons between the thigh and the lower
part of the leg; the knees.
Prelim – a preliminary hearing in court.
Prep-school – a penal institution for the reformation of young
offenders; a reform school, etc.
Preshun – an Angelina; a pun; a possesh, etc.
Press – to use force or pressure, as in pressing charges, etc.
Pretzel-bender – a mythical job in a cooky-factory; a stupid fellow,
etc.
Pride-‘n-joy – boy.
Prince – a pleasant, generous individual; a hell of a swell person, etc.
Print – an impression of the markings of the inner surface of the last
joint of the thumb or a finger; fingerprint; a mark; a picture, etc.
Private – confidential; not open to people in general; a soldier of the
lowest rank, etc.
Private-eye – a private investigator, not connected with police
departments; a detective.
Privilege-card – an identification card issued in some pens, allowing
special privileges or good conduct, etc.
Pro, or prohi – a federal prohibition officer.
Probation – a method of dealing with offenders, especially young
persons guilty of minor crimes or first offenses, by releasing them
conditionally.

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Procuress – a female who obtains women for the gratification of
lust; a female pimp.
Prod – a hypodermic needle; to rouse or incite; a poke or jab, etc.
Promote – to obtain by scheming; conniving, etc.; advance.
Prone-the-body – to lie down and rest; horizontal exercise, etc.
Prostitute – a woman who engages in sexual relations for money; a
whore, etc.
Prowl – to rove stealthily in search of prey, plunder, etc., as a thief.
Prowl-car – a police automobile which patrols a district, receiving
instructions from headquarters by shortwave radio, etc.
Prowler – one who prowls; one who plunders; a housebreaker, etc.
Prowler-rights – concessions granted by kinky members of the law,
whereby one can caper without interference, as from the law.
Pruno – an alcoholic drink concocted from anything that ferments,
such as peaches, apples, potatoes, etc., together with sweetening and
yeast.
Puff – nitroglycerin; to praise in exaggerated language; a short,
quick blast, etc.
Pull – influence, as with persons able to grant favors; to draw out
for use, as a knife, pistol, etc.
Pull-a-creep – to leave quietly; to move slowly or stealthily away,
etc.
Pull-a-duck – to surreptitiously steal away, etc.
Pull-a-fade-out – to slip quietly away.
138  
 
Pull-a-fast-one – to deceive by trick or device, etc.
Pump – a hollow muscular organ which by rhythmic contractions
and relaxation keeps the blood in circulation throughout the body;
the heart.
Pumpkin – a person’s head, melon, cabbage, etc.
Punch – to open a safe forcibly; to strike, as with the first, etc.
Punch-bowl – a boxing arena; a place where prize fights are held.
Punk – an Angelina; a road-kid; the “sod” part of sod-buster; a
homo; bread.
Purloin – to steal.
Purring-rack – a bed, kip, bunk, etc.
Push – to sell; to press or urge; to shove, etc.
Push-‘n-pull – a bull; a policeman, etc.
Push-around – to take advantage of; treat with scorn, etc.
Pusher – a dope peddler; a salesman; one in charge of a job; a boss,
etc.
Push-over – to accomplish without difficulty; easily made, etc.
Push-the-queer – to pass, or attempt to pass, counterfeit money, etc.
Puss – the face or mouth.
Pussy-bumper – the hair growing on the upper lip of men; a
mustachio, whiskers, etc.
Put-in-the-middle – to maneuver an individual into a position where
he cannot turn informer; to put another on-the-spot, etc.
139  
 
Put-on-the-blister – to angle a person into a precarious or dangerous
positions, etc.
Put-out – to give to a beggar; pay protection; to bribe; to submit to
extortion; a copulatively inclined fluff, etc.
Put-over-paper – to pass worthless checks, etc.
Put-the-arm-on – to strongarm; put-on-the-muscle, etc.
Put-the-bite-on – to mooch; extort, etc.
Put-the-cross-on – to mark for death.
Put-the-finger-on – to inform on another; to accuse, etc.
Putup-man – one who craftily plans and sets up a mark for clipping,
etc.
Puzzle-factory – an insane asylum; a chuckle-box, etc.
P-V – one who has violated the terms of his parole and is usually
returned to prison for another stretch.
Q – San Quentin penitentiary, in California.
Quail – a young girl or girls under legal age. “She’s San Quentin
quail.”
Quarantine – strict isolation, designed to prevent the spread of
disease, or trouble, in stir; also, to let the fish become
institutionalized, etc.
Queen – a male homo who has very, very feminine characteristics;
also, a desirable female, etc.
Queer – counterfeit money; a degenerate person; to foil a plot, plan,
etc.
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Quiff – a female of the more desirable variety.
Rabbit – a rowdy rake; quick on the trigger, or words to that effect,
etc.
Rabbit-foot – one who is fleet of foot; fast, etc.; luck.
Rabbit-legs – to escape; take it on-the-lam; run away, etc.
Race – to run, move, or go swiftly, etc.
Race-your-motor, don’t – don’t get excited; calm down, etc.
Racked-up – placed in isolation, as for an infraction of rules, etc;
arrested.
Racket – any dishonest scheme, trick, etc.; noise.
Racketeer – one engaged in illegal activities, designed to mulct or
clip the suckers, etc.
Raffle – a lottery in which prizes go to the lucky numbers.
Rag – to scold or tease; a dollar; a muff cover, etc.
Rags – clothing. “Moe bloomed out in gaudy new rags.”
Railroad – to imprison on a false charge in order to be rid of.
Raincheck – a term which indicates appreciation, but acceptance, as
of an invitation, at a later time.
Rakeoff – the amount taken as by a gambling house on games; the
percentage of take, etc.
Rambler – one who hooks rides on fast freights and passenger
trains; also, to wander about in a leisurely manner, etc.

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Rank – intercession by anyone during a caper; observe; suspect;
obnoxious, etc. “The cops ranked us.”
Rank-cat – one who is of the lowest bum genus; an informer, etc.
Ransom – bail money; the redemption of a prison, kidnapped
person, etc. for a price.
Rap – to talk; a criminal charge; a prison term, etc.
Rape – to plunder; the forcible violation of a woman, etc.
Rape-hound – an inveterate rapo.
Rapo – one guilty of rape or other sex beef, and generally shunned
in stir.
Rapper – a prosecuting witness; an accuser, etc.
Rat-‘n-mouse – house.
Rat – an informer; to inform; a contemptible, vile person, etc.
Rat-cage – any prison; a cell within a prison, etc.
Rat-caper – a crime in which an informer participates as a member
of a mob, and then betrays by tipping the cops.
Ratted – informed; stooled; squealed, etc.
Rattle – to confuse; to talk rapidly, etc.
Rattle-‘n-jar – car.
Rattler – a fast freight train; one who rattles; anything that is noisy,
etc.
Rattler’s-hiss – kiss.

142  
 
Rattle-up – to steal from railroad cars, etc.
Raw-jaw – blunt; overbearing; inferior liquor, etc.
Razorback – a circus roustabout.
Reach – a command which means to get the mitts in the air, and
high; to influence; the range of effective action, power, etc.
Reader – a warrant; an indictment; a pocketbook, etc.
Reader-with-a-tail – a warrant of arrest with a reward attached.
Read-your-shirt – examine your shirt for lice, graybacks, seam-
squirrels, etc.
Realize – to convert into cash; to grasp or understand clearly, etc.
Ream – to bust sod, as by sodomist.
Reamer – a sod-buster; a sodomist; homo, etc.
Recidivist – one who continues to return to prison; a repeater; a
chronic; an incorrigible criminal, etc.
Record-office – an office in prison where inmates’ records are
prepared and filed, etc.
Red – to become infuriated; gold, etc.
Redball – a fast freight, usually good for a long hop.
Redcap – a porter, especially in a railroad station, etc.
Red-hot – badly wanted by the police; recently stolen merchandise;
in the mood, etc.
Red-light – a house of prostitution; a signal to stop, etc.

143  
 
Red-light-district – a section of a town which is sprinkled with
houses of prostitution.
Red-super – a gold watch.
Red-tab – a high-ranking official.
Red-tag – a complaint lodged against an inmate by an officer,
charging him with some infraction of rules, etc.
Red-tape – excessive attention to formality and routine, etc.
Reef – a marijuana cigarette; to take steal; pick, etc.
Reefer – a refrigerator railroad car, with bunkers for ice in either
end which are often used for hitching rides when empty; a
marijuana cigarette, etc.
Reef-the-kick – to pick a pocket.
Reef-the-poke – to pick a wallet, etc.
Ref – a penal institution for the reformation of young offenders;
Regular – agreeable; good company; solid, etc.
Regulars – those usually present, etc.
Reindeer-dust – a bitter crystalline alkaloid obtained from coca
leaves, used as a narcotic; cocaine, snow.
Remittance-man – one who is paid to stay away from home.
Repeater – one who continues to return to stir; a chronic; a
recidivist, etc.
Rest-house – a jail, prison, etc.
Rhino – money.
144  
 
Rhubarb-court – a court presided over by a rural Justice of the
Peace who is a local officer having authority to try minor cases,
solemnize marriages, etc.
Rhubarbs – simple, unsophisticated people; rustics; hicks, etc.
Rib – to tease; to jest with; to fool; a female, etc.
Ribbon – adhesive tape, etc.
Rib-steak – a tongue lashing loaded with invectives, lampoons, etc.
Ride – to harass; torment; to bump-off; to copulate, etc.
Ride-old-smoky – to be executed via electrocution.
Ride-the-beef – to take responsibility for any wrong-doing, etc.
Ride-the-rods – to travel by hitching rides on trains, and
particularly on freights.
Riffraff – worthless or disreputable people; rabble, etc.
Rig – to fix; frame; any peculiar arrangement; an automobile; a
heap, etc.
Rigged – especially arranged, as a card game, a roulette disc, etc., so
as not to give the suckers an even break.
Rigged-game – a game which is set-up so the participants haven’t a
chance to win.
Rigged-joint – an establishment geared for taking the lambs.
Right – reliable; trustworthy; solid, etc.; also, correct; true, etc.
Right-britch – right-hand trousers pocket.
Right-chalk – on the right.
145  
 
Right-cap – a captain, particularly in stir, a police, etc., who is
regarded as being fair and honest.
Right-D-A – a prosecuting attorney who is interested in seeing
justice done.
Right-grift – the privilege of capering with political or police
protection, etc.
Right-disguise – a change, as in clothes, actions, speech, etc., which
conceals, and which is not easily penetrated.
Right-guy – one who is solid, reliable, trustworthy, etc.
Right-pratt – right rear trousers pocket.
Ring – a group of persons co-operating for selfish, sometimes illicit
purposes; an enclosed area in which prize fights are held; a circular
band of metal, worn on the finer; the rectum.
Ringer – a substitution; a sodomist, etc.
Ring-figures – round numbers.
Ring-hound – one who indulges in unnatural sexual intercourse, as
of one man with another; a sodomist, etc.
Ringleader – one who leads others in opposition to law or in
anything deemed objectionable; a boss, etc.
Ringtail – a hobo term for a braggart or boaster; a novice, etc.
Ripsy-rousers – trousers.
Rip-the-belly – to put the guts on display with the aid of a shiv; to
cut open, etc.
Rip-the-guts – same as “rip-the-belly.”
146  
 
Rip-up – to loot on a large scale; to destroy, etc.
Ritz – the very best; bonaroo; snooty, etc.
River, the – a main vein or artery.
Roach – any police officer; a dick; a small but from a marijuana
cigarette, etc.
Road – a railroad; an open way for passage or travel; highway, etc.
Road-game – the gambling game at which one is most adept.
Road-kid – a boy on the bum who is usually glommed and becomes
the possesh of a wolf, etc.
Roaring-oar – door.
Robbing-the-mail – to glom food, milk, etc. from doorsteps of
business houses, homes, etc., usually during the early morning; to
steal, as from letters, etc.
Rock, the – an island in San Francisco Bay; the U.S. penitentiary
there; Alcatraz; a dollar, etc.
Rock-candy – precious stones such as diamonds.
Rock-pile – a place where inmates with sledges do facials on huge
rocks, making little ones out of big ones, etc.
Rocks – precious stones, and particularly diamonds.
Rod – a pistol or revolver, etc.
Rodded-up – carrying a pistol or revolver; healed, etc.
Rod-man – one who carries a pistol or revolver, etc.

147  
 
Rods – the under-structure of a freight car, where one can hitch a
ride; also, pistols, revolvers, etc.
Roll – to rob, as a drunk. “Moe rolled the lush.”
Roll-a-pill – roll a cigarette , as with tobacco and a blanket.
Roll-‘em-up – the bull is getting a bit too thick.
Roll-in-the-sawdust – to lie on a sawdust-covered deck of an old-
fashioned saloon; very funny, etc.
Roll-me-in-the-gutter – butter.
Rooker – a swindler; a crook; a thief, etc.
Rookie – one who is new to a task; a novice; a raw recruit, etc.
Roost – a place of abode, such as an apartment, home, etc.; to rest,
etc.
Rooster-brand – a bootleg brand of opium.
Root – to work at any of the various capers in order to make a
dishonest buck; also, the male organ of copulation; penis.
Root-‘n-tooter – fruiter.
Root-with-the-Oliver – to caper while the moon is shining; also, to
caper with a pistol, etc.
Rope – a sentence of death by hanging on the gallows; to be hanged;
privileges; a strong thick line or cord, etc.
Rope-dance – an execution by hanging on a gallows, etc.
Roscoe – a pistol, revolver, etc.
Roses-red – bed.
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Round – a charge of ammunition for a single shot; to encircle;
plump, etc.
Rounder – a habitual drunkard or criminal; one who generally
raises hell, etc.
Roundup – a drive to pick up all suspicious characters for
investigation, etc.
Roust – to force out; to tease or jest with, etc.
Route – a particular course; the limit; the method; shoot-the-moon,
etc.
Row – the whorehouse district; also, the squalid, miserable,
degraded part of a city where mission-stiffs, rumpots, etc. barely
exist; a noisy dispute, quarrel, etc.
Royal-d’amour – floor.
Rub – to irritate; friction; to kill; blot; eliminate, etc.
Rubber – a safety device employed for copulation; also, an
automobile; one who bumps; an assassin, etc.
Rubber-chain – a mythical chain to which one is said to be ready for
when he shows signs of mental instability, and which leads to the
booby-hatch.
Rubber-check – a spurious, worthless check.
Rubberneck-party – a group of squares who visit and inspect a
prison.
Rub-out – to kill; blot; eliminate, etc.
Ruffian – a tough, lawless person.

149  
 
Rum – an alcoholic liquor or spirit distilled from molasses or some
other sugar-cane product; alcoholic beverages in general.
Rum-beak – a kink judge who can be bribed; anyone who drinks to
excess.
Rumble – to be detected; rank, etc. “Moe got a rumble from the
bull.”
Rumpot – a habitual drunk; a chronic alcoholic.
Rumrunner – a person or ship engaged in smuggling liquor.
Run – to convey or transport; in operation; to lam, etc.
Runabout – one who travels from place to place; a roadster, etc.
Runaround – to equivocate; to evade, etc.
Run-in – to have difficulties with; to arrest, etc.
Runner – a messenger; a smuggler, etc.
Run-out-powder – to desert; run away; lam, etc.
Run-the-roads-down – to check the getaway routes prior to
capering, etc.
Rush-act – to exert pressure; a hostile attack; to heap attentions on,
etc.
Rush-in – the officer of food instead of money to a beggar who is not
interested or in need of food.
Rustle – to get out and root.
Rusty – out of practice; having lost agility or alertness; old, etc.
S-A – sex appeal.
150  
 
Sacked – a method of murder where a victim is drugged, tied in a
sack with a noose drawn loosely around his neck and tied to his
ankles, his body jackknifed – he strangles himself; also, arrested,
etc.
Saddle, in the – in charge of the situation; running the show; also,
partaking of copulation.
Safe – reliable; a steel or iron box for valuables; out of danger, etc.
Safe-cracker – one who robs safes by stripping, explosives, burning,
etc.; a peter-man; a box-man, etc.
Sag – to give up; to confess, etc.
Sagebrush-philosopher – a gabby fellow from out west.
Sail – to go boldly into action; to go along with; to travel, etc.
Saint Terra – a yard adjoining a church, used as a graveyard; a
churchyard.
Salesman – one who sells or convinces, with the aid of persuaders,
when necessary.
Sallies – members of the Salvation Army.
Sally – the Salvation Army; a member of the Salvation Army.
Sallyport – the room in which the officers’ mess is served within the
walls.
Salmon-belly – a gold certificate; a yellowback; also, a greenback of
large denomination.
Salt – to bury, as in prison or in a chuckle-box; to get rid of; tough,
etc.

151  
 
Salty – hard; incorrigible; cocky, etc.
Salvage – that which is left, etc.
Salve – flowery praise; butter; slippin’s, etc.
Salve-eater – one who chews snuff.
Sam – one who is lacking or not showing ordinary activity and
keenness of mind; a stupid fellow, etc.
Sand – sugar.
Sanded-deck – a fixed deck of cards, prepared for clipping the
suckers.
San Quentin-quail – frails below the legal age; jailbait, etc.
Sap – a short club, usually leather-covered, consisting of a heavy
head on an elastic shaft; a victimized person; to hit or strike as with
a weapon, etc.
Saps – a pair of crutches.
Satchel-man – the person who picks up the “ice,” pay-off money,
etc.
Savvy – to know; understand; understanding; intelligence; sense,
etc.
Saw, or sawbuck – a ten-dollar bill; a ten-year penitentiary hitch.
Sawbones – one who practices surgery; a surgeon; doctors,
generally.
Sawney – bacon or fat pork; pig’s-vest-‘n-buttons.
Scandal-sheet – a newspaper; a bladder, etc.

152  
 
Scandal-soup – a beverage prepared from dried and processed
leaves of a certain Oriental shrub, from which a bitter aromatic
drink is prepared by infusion in hot water; tea.
Scare – an extortion racket; to strike with sudden fear or terror; to
become frightened, etc.
Scare-mob – a gang which specializes in extortion, intimidation, etc.
Scatter – to separate and drive off in various directions; disperse;
small change, etc.
Scatter-gun – a weapon, such as a sawed-off shotgun, which scatters
lead over a large area.
Scavenger-gang – the crew employed in moving an executed person
from the death-house to the ice-house, etc.
Scheeney – a Jew; a Jewish thief, etc.
Schnozzle – the part of the face or head which contains the nostrils,
affording passage for air in respiration, etc.; the nose.
Schoolmate – one with whom another has served time in jail, a
penitentiary, etc.
Scissorbill – a term of contempt for a square or honest citizen; a
hoosier; a square-John, etc.
Scoff – to mock, jeer, speak derisively, etc.; to eat.
Scoff-joint – a beanery; restaurant, etc.
Score – to effect a successful caper; in the know, etc. “Moe knows
the score.”
Score-for-food – to secure a supply of food; to raise a lump, etc.

153  
 
Scram – get away; to get out of the way; blow, etc.
Scraper – one whose occupation it is to give haircuts, shaves, etc.; a
barber; hog-scraper, etc.
Scraper-school – a barber college where the tonsorial profession is
taught, and the finished products become hog-scrapers; barbers;
scrapers, etc.
Scrape-the-pavement – to get a shave; to shave, etc.
Scratch – to write; to bump; to start with nothing, as from scratch;
money, etc.
Scratch, on the – engaged in rubber-check business; forgery, etc.
Scratch-crib – a cheap flophouse.
Scratch-house – a house of prostitution; a brothel, etc.
Scratch-man – one engaged in the rubber-check business; forgery,
etc.
Screw – a prison guard; key; bull; officer; also, to flee; escape; get
going, etc.
Screw-factory – an insane asylum; a laughing academy, etc.
Screw-out – to exit by using a stolen or joint-contrived key; get
going, etc.
Screwsman – a burglar who operates with keys.
Screwy – mentally deranged; crazy, etc.
Screw-your-nut – get wise to yourself; go away, etc.
Scribe – one who assists the illiterate with correspondence, etc.

154  
 
Scrix – to double-cross; to betray, etc.
Seafood – one whose occupation is going to sea; a sailor; fish, etc.
Seam-squirrels – lice; graybacks; crums, etc.
Sea-stiff – one whose occupation is going to sea; a sailor, etc.
Second – a moment or instant; one who aids or supports another.
Seconds – another of anything after the first; coffee grounds that
have been used once, etc.
Second-story-man – a burglar who robs homes, usually during
supper-time; a porch-climber, etc.
Second-story-worker – same as “second-story-man.”
Sell-one-out – to betray; double-cross; dump, etc.
Sell-out – to get rabbit legs; to run away; to dispose of, etc.
Send – to cause to go, as to jail, prison, etc.
Send-to-school – to sentence to jail, prison, etc.
Sent-up – sentenced to prison.
Settle – to become calm and collected; to pay; to agree upon; to
locate, etc.
Settled – dispose of, as being sentenced to prison, etc.; completed.
Set-in – to be on amicable terms; to belong, etc.
Set-up – the description and prearranged plan for a caper, etc.
Set-over – to put off to a later time; defer; postpone, etc.
Seven-wing – a prison cemetery; boot-hill, etc.
155  
 
Sewer – the mainline; to throw one in the sewer, creek, river, etc.
means to take a hypodermic shot or narcotics in the mainline.
Sexy – excessively concerned with sex; sexually attractive, etc.
Shack – a brakeman on a railroad train.
Shack, or shackle – anything that prevents freedom; fetter; hand-
cuff, etc.
Shack-fever – itchy feet; spring fever, etc.
Shade – comparatively obscurity; darkness at the close of day; to
hide from view; to change by slight graduations, etc.; to cut, as a
price, etc.
Shade-work – work that is accomplished during the hours of
darkness.
Shadow – an inseparable companion; one who watches another, as a
detective, etc.
Shag – to dance; to partake in copulation, etc.
Shake – to extort; to search; tremble, etc.; also, a chance.
Shakedown – to search; blackmail; extort, etc.
Shakers – those who search, extort, etc.; a woman’s breastworks;
teats; knockers; bumpers, etc.
Shakes – to behave nervously; the jitters; that morning-after feeling,
etc.
Shake-time – to do time in prison; serve time, etc.
Sham – a policeman; a spurious imitation; to pretend; counterfeit,
etc.
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Shamus – a private-eye; a detective.
Shark – a person who preys greedily on others; a glib talker who
sells himself easily, etc.
Sharp – intelligent; cage; on-the-beam, etc.; having a thin cutting
edge, or a fine point; shrill; violent; abrupt, etc.
Sharpen-up – to shave, bathe, dress with nicety; get wise to yourself;
improve your knowledge, etc.
Sharper – a kinky gambler, or other cheat; one who deals
dishonestly, etc.
Sharp-like-a-wet-noodle – lacking mental astuteness, etc.
Sharpshooter – a skilled marksman; one who is on the kinky side,
etc.
Shatting – walking; traveling, etc.
Shatting-on-the-uppers – to be financially flat; without funds, etc.
Shavetail – a novice; a young mule; a second lieutenant, etc.
Shavings – an inferior alcoholic beverage; dehorn, etc.
Sheepherder – a stupid fellow; one who practices abnormal sex
relations; a homo, etc.
Sheet – a newspaper; a cigarette paper; a bed covering, etc.
Sheet-passer – one who passes or attempts to pass spurious checks,
etc.
Sheet-writer – one who scratches rubber checks, etc.; a forger.

157  
 
Shell – a cartridge used in small-arms; to bathe with lead; to give; to
pay up, etc.
Shellac – to ship; defeat; work-over, etc.
Shell-V – a steel vault with a thin one-plate door, etc.
Sheriff’s-ball – an execution by hanging, where the condemned
dances at the end of a rope until dead.
Shill – a decoy, as for gambling games; an accomplice, etc.
Shine – a Negro; a burrhead; moonshine liquor; a gold coin, etc.
Shiner – discoloration of the skin around the eye, as from a blow,
etc.
Ship-of-junk – a shipment of narcotics, etc.
Shiv – a cutting instrument consisting essentially of a thin blade
attached to a handle; a knife; a razor; a blade, etc.
Shoe-leather-express – to take flight by running, as with rabbit legs,
etc.
Shonaker – one of the Hebrew or Jewish people.
Shoo-fly – a detour to avoid unnecessary scrutiny by the law; get-
going; get out of the way, etc.
Shoot – to try; to extend; also, to hit; wound; or kill with a missile
discharged from a weapon, etc.
Shoot-a-curve – to angle, scheme, devise, plot, contrive, etc.
Shoot-a-mean-stick – to eat heavily; a glutton; a dougout, etc.
Shoot-it-out – to blast to the finish, as with the law, etc.

158  
 
Shoot-the-moon – to go the limit.
Shoot-the-works – to wager everything, as in gambling, etc.
Shop-line – the various industries within the walls; also, those
employed in special work, etc.
Shotgun – a smooth-bore gun for firing small shot or buckshot, etc.
Short – practically without funds; stir-time almost completed; a
streetcar, etc.
Short-bit – a small amount of time. “The Board gave Moe a short-
bit.”
Short-con – any sort of confidence game which does not require an
elaborate build-up.
Short-dough – very little money; practically without funds, etc.
Short-line – the mess-line to the dining room, usually for those who
do special work. (The main body of inmates east main-line.)
Short-of-marbles – not all there mentally; about thirty-cents-on-the-
dollar, etc.
Short-story – a phony check, etc.
Short-story-writer – one who scratches phony paper, such as checks,
etc.; a forger.
Shot – an important fellow; a try; the discharge or a discharge of a
firearm; a drink, as of liquor; a photograph, etc.
Shot-in-the-arm – a drink of liquor; a hypodermic-injection of
narcotic; an inspiration, etc.

159  
 
Shove – to pass or attempt to pass spurious money, checks, etc.; to
push; to leave, etc.
Shove-across – hand over; let’s have it, etc.
Shovel-‘n-broom – room.
Shovel-bum – a lowly fellow who does menial tasks such as working
with idiot-sticks, etc.
Shover – one who passes or attempts to pass spurious money,
checks, etc.
Shovin’-the-queer – passing counterfeit money, etc.
Show – to make an appearance; to display; to finish in first, second
or third place in a race; to guide, etc.
Showcase – a glass case for the display of articles, as in stores, etc.
Shower-of-lead – a sprinkle of bullets, as from firearms, etc.
Show-out – to dismiss; give the bum’s-rush, etc.
Show-up – a line-up of prisoners before the law, victims of crime,
etc. for possible identification, etc.
Showup-man – the mug in a hijacking crew who steps into the road,
gun in hand, and holds up the truck-driver, crew, etc.
Shrubbery – the hair growing on a person’s face; whiskers; clothes,
etc.
Shuck – to quit; desert, etc.
Shuteye – sleep.

160  
 
Silent-treatment – a situation where no one raps to an individual,
usually because of a shady deal, or school activities.
Sing – to confess, inform, etc.
Singing-school – a spot where the third degree is administered;
where confessions are extracted, etc.
Sight – to direct by a sight or sights, as a firearm; a view; a
spectacle; the power or faculty of seeing, etc.
Shying – the technique of cooking opium; turning away, etc.
Shyster – a mouthpiece who uses questionable methods; a person
who cannot be trusted, etc.
Siberia – the hole in stir; the prison within the prison.
Single-O – a male, and particularly a homo.
Sinkers – doughnuts.
Sing-the-blues – to mewl out sad tales; to be depressed, etc.
Sinking-fund – a holdout from capers, which often causes lead-
poisoning.
Sit-down – a meal served at a table.
Six-shirt-‘n-fifty-hat – an unbalanced person; rubber-chain
material.
Sixty-nine – a form of sex indulged in by deviates.
Sixty-niner – one who indulges in abnormal sex relations.
Skee – whiskey.
Skeleton – the remains; a very lean person, etc.
161  
 
Skiboo – a gunman; scram; get going, etc.
Skidrow, or skidroad – the squalid, miserable, degraded part of a
city, where mission-stiffs, rumpots, etc. barely exist.
Skids – the downward path. “They put the skids to Moe.”
Skin – to lift money from a wallet or other receptacle; to out-
maneuver; copulative material; a female, etc.
Skin-frisk – the search of a person which requires the removal of all
clothing; a check for skin puncture marks, as from narcotic
injections, etc.
Skin-gambler – one who employs kinky methods; a cheat, etc.
Skin-game – any dishonest dealings by which one is clipped, as by
trickery, fraud, etc.
Skin-habit – the addiction to the use of narcotics via the
hypodermic-injection, etc.
Skin-joint – an establishment that uses kinky methods in its
operations; a house of prostitution, etc.
Skinner – one who drives mules; a dishonest person, etc.
Skin-shot – a dose of narcotics which is injected beneath the skin.
Skipper – the one in charge, as the warden of a prison; boss, etc.
Skirt – a female; to pass around, etc.
Skirt-simple – one who is overly interested in the weaker sex.
Skivvies – trunk-like underwear.
Skuldugery – dishonorable proceedings; mean trickery, etc.

162  
 
Skull – the head; the bony framework of the head, enclosing the
brain.
Skull-buster – any officer of the law; any weapon with which blows
can be administered, as a sap, etc.
Sky – the region of the clouds or upper air, toward which the hands
should go when the command “reach” is given.
Sky-blue – an alcoholic beverage obtained by redistilling spirits with
flavoring agents such as juniper berries, orange peel, etc.
Sky-pilot – a minister; parson; Jerusalem-slim; autumn-bawler, etc.
Sky-pocket – an inside pocket, as in a jacket or shirt.
Sky-rockets – pockets.
Slam – to criticize; to shut with force and noise; the noise made, etc.
Slammer – a movable barrier, commonly turning on hinges or
sliding, for closing and opening the entrance to a building, room,
etc.; a door.
Slam-off – to take off; leave, etc.
Slant – a mental view or tendency.
Slap – to strike sharply, as with the open hand; a rebuke, etc.
Slap-happy – one who is lacking between the ears; a dingaling, etc.
Slat – one of a series of long, slender, curved bones enclosing the
thoracic cavity and articulated with the vertebrae; a rib; also, a
long, thin, narrow strip of wood, metal, etc.; a sharp blow, etc.
Slat-‘n-lath – bath.

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Slaughterhouse – a place where executions are perpetrated; the
death-house.
Slave-market – an employment agency where jobs are sold.
Sleep – a short term in jail; shuteye, etc.
Sleeper – a sleeping car, as a railroad car fitted with berths,
compartments, or bedrooms for sleeping; one who sleeps, etc.
Sleighride-party – a gathering at which snow, or cocaine, is used
freely as a narcotic; a wild part, etc.
Sleuth – a member of the police force whose function it is to obtain
information and evidence, as of offenses against the law; a detective;
a private-eye, etc.
Slick – smooth of manner, speech, etc.; sly; shrewdly adroit; sleek;
glossy; a magazine printed on glossy paper, etc.
Slicker – a cagey, shrewd, smooth operator, etc.
Slick-hombre – one who is sharp in his dealings, etc.
Slides – on the way out; finished, etc.
Slim – slender; poor; slight; small, etc.
Sling – an iced alcoholic drink, containing gin or the like, water,
sugar, and lemon or lime juice; to throw, etc.
Slippin’s – a salve employed by a sod-buster to enhance his
perverted pleasure.
Slobber – to kiss; mawkishly sentimental speech or actions, etc.
Slob-sister – a mooch who mewls while begging to create sympathy.

164  
 
Sloose – to hide.
Slop – a term generally used to describe poor food, and particularly
jail or prison chuck, etc.
Slop-house – a cheap restaurant; greasy-spoon, etc.
Slough – a piece of soft, muddy ground; to strike, etc.; arrest.
Slow-motion-brain – on the stupid side; tediously uninteresting, etc.
Slug – a drink of liquor; a dollar; a bullet; to strike, etc.
Slugs-‘n-slop – doughnuts and coffee.
Sluice-powder – Epsom salt, used as a cathartic.
Slum – cheap jewelry; anything inferior, etc.; a thickly populated
squalid part of a city, etc.
Slum-joint – a jewelry store of the lower variety; a cheap restaurant,
etc.
Slumming – to visit the lower class places, such as for entertainment,
etc.; thieving, etc.
Slush-money – money which is used for fixing, bribing, etc.
Slut – a broken-down female; a prostitute, etc.
Small-arms – any weapons of small caliber, carried by hand, as
rifles, pistols, etc.
Smart-bucks – money which is placed as on bets by the boys who
are in a position to know the score; wise-money, etc.
Smear – an unfair derogatory attack; to defeat; to rub or spread; to
administer a beating, etc.

165  
 
Smeck – narcotics.
Smell – to detect by shrewdness; an odor; a part, etc.
Smoke – inferior liquor, which may contain ether, denatured
alcohol, etc.; to shoot at; a Negro, etc.
Smoke-iron – any firearm, as a pistol, rifle, typewriter, etc.
Smoke-off – to shoot; to kill with a pistol, rifle, etc.
Smoke-pole – a shotgun, rifle, typewriter, etc.; a pipe, etc.
Smoker – an opium user; one who uses a Chinese-saxophone, etc.;
one who smokes cigarettes, etc.
Smoke-wagon – a firearm, as a pistol, rifle, typewriter, etc.
Smoky-seat – an electrified chair, used to execute by electrocution.
Smooth – to square a beef, as by bribery, the fix, etc.; elegant or
polished, as speech, etc.
Smotch – to escape.
Snack – a lump; a quick, light meal, etc.
Snaffler – one who robs on the highway; a highway.
Snake – one who cannot be trusted; a railroad switchman, etc.
Snake-eyes – an ace on each of the two dice, as in the game of craps.
Snakes – a violent delirium, induced by excessive and prolonged use
of intoxicating liquor, and causing hallucinations and tremors; D-
T’s; barrel-fever, etc.
Snapper – a match, as for producing fire; a bonaroo muff, etc.

166  
 
Snapper-rig – a second-hand suit of clothes.
Snarin’s – that which is stolen, such as a lump of food, etc.
Snarl – to confuse; to intimidate a witness; to speak threateningly,
etc.
Snatch – to kidnap; to steal; a woman’s twidget, muff, etc.
Snatcher – one who kidnaps another for ransom, etc.; any officer of
the law, etc.
Snatch-pad – a bed, kip, bunk, etc.
Sneak-gate – a steel-barred gate in vaults, inside the regular door,
which is used while the vault is unlocked during the day as a
safeguard.
Sneakypete-drinker – one who drinks hair tonic, dehorn, etc.
Sneeze – to kidnap; to arrest, etc.
Sniff – a taste; a small amount; to draw thru the nose in short,
audible inhalation, etc.
Sniffer – the nose; one who is looking for trouble; one addicted to
the sniffing of cocaine, etc.
Snifter – a drink of liquor.
Snipe – to shoot from a concealed position; partially smoked
cigarette or cigar butt.
Snipe-shooter – one who gloms cigarette and cigar butts as off the
streets, etc.
Snitchel – to smash or strike; to work-over, etc.

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Snitcher – a spy for the police, employer, etc.; informer, stool, etc.
Snitch-kite – a note, as by a pigeon to the officers, informing on
another, etc.
Snooty-cutie – a desirable, but hard to get female.
Snort – a drink, as of liquor; to express contempt, etc.
Snow – a bitter crystalline alkaloid obtained from coca leaves and
used as a narcotic; cocaine.
Snowball-handout – the donation of a small lump of cocaine.
Snowbank – a spot where one can purchase cocaine.
Snowbird – one addicted to the use of cocaine.
Snowflier – one who is “high” from the effects of cocaine.
Snow-job – high-pressure conversation intended to convince.
Snow-under – to overcome with constant conversation.
Snuff-the-wick – to kill a person; to die, etc.
Soapbox-philosopher – a nitwit who howls his message for saving
the world on street-corners, etc.
Sock – to strike or hit hard; a hard blow; a short socking, etc.
Sod – turf; a piece of grassland, containing the roots, etc.
Sod-buster – a sodomist.
Sodomist – one who practices sodomy; a sod-buster; homo, etc.
Sodomy – unnatural sexual intercourse, especially one man with
another.

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Soft-heel – to quietly steal-away.
Soft-stuff – paper money; young and tender quail, etc.
Sol – solitary confinement; a prison within a prison; the hole, etc.
Soldier – a lookout; a point-man; a bottle of liquor, etc.
Solid – reliable; close-mouthed; trustworthy, etc.
Solo – to travel or caper alone.
Son-of-Adam – one who is willing to work for a lump.
Song-‘n-dance – pants; also, a fabricated yarn; the runaround, etc.
Songs-‘n-sighs – thighs.
Soogan – a large bedcovering; a blanket.
Sorority – a house of prostitution.
Sorrowful-tale – jail; also, a sad story, etc.
Soundbox – the passage from the mouth to the stomach, or to the
lungs; the throat; the head, etc.
Sound-off – speak-up; to speak; utter, etc.
Soup – nitroglycerin, which is usually extracted from dynamite.
Soup-line – a lump of food, as of charity.
Sour-paper – counterfeit; not genuine, etc.
S-P – suspicious person; shore patrol; special police; Southern
Pacific, etc.
Space – room; distance; extent or interval of time, etc.

169  
 
Spade – to dig; a digging tool; a black figure, shaped like an
inverted heart; death, etc.
Spaginzy – a member of the Negro race; a colored person.
Spanish-guitar – cigar.
Spark – a pure or nearly pure form of carbon, crystallized in the
isometric system of extreme hardness, and of great brilliance when
used as a precious stone; a diamond; to woo or court, etc.
Speak, or speakeasy – a place where intoxicating liquors are sold
without a license, and contrary to law; a blind-pig; a jinny, etc.
Spear – a sharp-headed weapon for thrusting; to catch; arrest; take,
etc.
Spearing-biscuits – to fish scraps from garbage cans.
Speedball – a hamburger steak; a snort of liquor; narcotics, etc.
Speeder – a mixture, usually of cocaine and morphine; any lifting
liquor narcotic, etc.; one who travels fast, etc.
Spec – to speculate; a speculator; speculation, etc.
Spec-bum – one who speculates, as on fight tickets, etc.
Spic – a Mexican.
Spider – one adept at scaling, as a second-story-worker; a skillet,
etc.
Spiel – a prolonged harangue; to talk much and to little purpose;
prate, etc.
Spieler – one who is gifted with gab; a salesman, etc.

170  
 
Spike – a hypodermic needle or a medicine dropper, so rigged as to
give hypodermic-injections; also, to add alcohol to beer, etc.
Spill – a bus station, railway station, etc.; to let fall, as a liquid; to
shed, as blood, etc.
Spill-one’s-guts – to open the abdomen, as with a shiv, and put the
intestines on display; to confess; inform, etc.
Spindle – a steel bar to which a safe’s combination is attached.
Spine-stiffener – alcoholic beverages, narcotics, etc.
Spittoon – a bowl used as a receptacle for spit; a goboon; duspidor,
etc.
Spittoon-philosopher – an opinionated hanger-on who frequents the
gin mills, etc.
Splash- water in drops, as falling from the sky; rain; water; an
elaborate display, etc.
Splinter-belly – a construction worker who labors on bridges,
trestles, etc.
Split – to break up and separate, as thru disagreement; divide; a
female, etc.
Splittail – any member of the weaker sex.
Square-shooter – an honest, fair person.
Squash – to kill, as an indictment; to silence, etc.
Squeak – same as “squak,” but to a lesser degree.
Squeaker – same as “squaker,” but to a lesser degree.

171  
 
Squeal – to inform on another; to squak, etc.
Squealer – an informer; a rat; a traitorous confederate, etc.
Squeeze – to extort; to put on the pressure; a tight spot, etc.
Squeeze-rates – an exorbitant charge, as by a mouthpiece when he
knows he has a client in-a-tight-, etc.
Squinch-eyed – droopy, with the glimmers barely open.
Squirrel-ranch – an insane asylum; booby-hatch; chuckle-box, etc.
Splurge – to make an ostentatious display, as after making a good
score, etc.
Spoil – booty, loot, or plunder gathered from capers, etc.; also, to
damage; to become spoiled, putrid, etc.
Spot – a place selected to effect a caper; an establishment; to see; in
difficulty, danger, embarrassment, etc.
Spot-off – to watch secretly; to spy, etc.
Spotter – one who locates and cases marks for capers; a spy, etc.
S-P-rap – a “suspicious-person” charge, under which one is held for
investigation by the police, etc.
Spread-the-mustard – to dish the bull, malarkey, baloney, etc.
Spring – to release or be released, as from incarceration; to escape;
to leap or jump; the first season of the year, etc.
Spring-key – a gimmick, as a loid, used to force a lock.
Sprinkle-the-flowers – give them a shower of lead, as from small-
arms.

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Sprout – a young person; a novice; a green-pea; a wise-guy, etc.
Spruce – to dress neatly; trim; neat; dapper, etc.
Spuderette – a woman who does menial tasks; a servant, etc.
Spud-route – addicted to the use of pruno, distilled from potatoes,
etc.
Squak – to confess; to inform or rat on another; to sing; to
complain, etc.
Squaker – one who complains, confesses, informs, etc.
Square – an orthodox individual; one who works for a living; a
square-John; also, to fix, etc.
Square-a-rap – to make favorable arrangements, as via influence,
bribe, fix, etc.
Square-deal – a warden (I hope); an honest arrangement, etc.
Squarehead – an honest person; a square-John, etc.
Square-it – to fix, or make favorable arrangements, as on a beef,
rap, etc.
Square-John – an honest citizen; a hoosier; one who works for a
living, etc.
Stable – a house of prostitution. “The madam has a fancy string-of-
horses in her stable.”
Stable-boss – a woman in charge of a brothel; a madam.
Stable-dog – a chambermaid in a brothel; one who does menial
tasks, etc.

173  
 
Stacked – well-proportioned, as a gal, with hills, valleys, curves, etc.
located properly, plus; also, a specially arranged deck of cards for
clipping the lambs, etc.
Stack-of-bones – an order of spareribs; a slender person, etc.
Stake – to furnish or have necessary funds; that which is wagered;
to wager, etc.
Stake-man – one who holds wagers, as on bets, etc.
Stall – an accomplice of a pickpocket, who distracts the attention of
the mark while the cannon does his work; an excuse, etc.
Stand-pat – to plead “not guilty;” to refuse to implicate others;
refuse to change one’s story or testimony, etc.
Stand-point – to act as lookout and give the office, if necessary.
Stand-still – to permit crooks to caper via protection payments.
Stash – to put away for safekeeping or in a prepared place; plant;
hide, etc.
Station – a place that receives and transmits radio broadcasts; a
depot; position; location, etc.
Stay – to remain; to stop or halt, as an execution, etc.
Steel – a knife; blade; shiv, etc.; also, iron in a modified form,
artificially produced; determined, strong, etc.
Steer – to direct, as a sucker to a clip-joint, etc.
Steerer – a decoy, as for a gambling house, etc.; sucker-bait, etc.
Steer-guy – a hoodlum who steers the intended victim into position,
etc.
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Steer-man – same as “steer-guy.”
Steer-percent – the fee proportion to the steerer.
Stem – a street; a leg; a drill used by safe-workers; to beg, etc.
Stem-gazer – one who ogles women’s legs.
Stem-in – to drill a hole in a safe for inserting or pouring in
explosives; to force the dog of a safe combination, etc.
Stemmer – a professional beggar; a mooch, etc.
Step-‘n-a-half – a very tall person.
Sterno – a dangerous alcoholic drink, made by heating and straining
canned sterno.
Stetson – a good hat; bonaroo, etc.
Stew – to extract nitroglycerin from dynamite by softening in warm
water and squeezing the soup off, which is a dangerous task; also, to
cook; to fret; a drunk, etc.
Stew-builder – a kitchen-mechanic; a cook, etc.
Stew-bum – a low type lush; a chronic alcoholic; a drunk, etc.
Stick – a marijuana cigarette; a match; a carny’s aid who eggs the
saps to gamble; to impose upon or cheat; stab; to cling or cleave;
stay, etc.
Sticker – a postage stamp; a blade; shiv; a tenacious fellow, etc.
Stick-of-tea – a marijuana cigarette.
Stick-man – one who indulges in marijuana cigarettes.
Sticks – any rural community; marijuana cigarettes; legs, etc.
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Stickup – a holdup robbery.
Stickup-artist – one who specializes in holdups and robberies; a
heist-man, etc.
Stiff – a corpse; a bum; a worthless check; hot bonds; drunk, etc.
Stiff-as-a-fiddler’s-bitch – piflicated; drunk; passed out, etc.
Stiff-as-a-plank – loaded; stiff; drunk; passed out, etc.
Stiff-joint – a fence or kinky broker who handles hot securities; one
who deals in cadavers; a funeral home; a tavern, etc.
Stiffen – to become rigid; stubborn; formal; kill, etc.
Still – silent; calm; a photographic picture; a distilling apparatus,
consisting of a vessel in which the concoction is heated, vaporized
and condensed, etc.
Stinchy – reluctant to give or spend; miserly; meager; stingy, etc.
Sting – to goad; cheat; shoot, etc.
Stinger – a contraband, small electric wire contraption, used in stir
to heat, as coffee, etc.; the male organ of copulation, etc.
Stinks – has a pungent stench; obnoxious, etc.
Stir – a prison; a state or federal penitentiary, etc.; also, to agitate;
rouse; excite; movement; excitement; commotion, etc.
Stir-bark – tuberculosis; an infectious disease affecting any of
various tissues of the body, and particularly the lungs; T-B.
Stir-bugs – mentally deranged, usually attributed to incarceration.
Stir-crazy – same as “stir-bugs.”

176  
 
Stir-nuts – same as “stir-bugs.”
Stir-simple – same as “stir-bugs.”
Stir-steerer – a shyster or mouthpiece, who dumps his client, usually
after extracting all the cabbage the client can raise.
Stir-wise – to be versed in the ways of inmates, bulls, prison
procedure, etc.
Stockholder – one who has a financial interest in; an owner of stock
or shares, etc.
Stomach-habit – addicted to the use of opium via the Chinese-
saxophone, etc.
Stone – a gem, such as a ruby, diamond, etc.; to throw rocks; to
strike, as with rocks, etc.
Stone-crook – one who misrepresents in selling precious stones, as
diamonds, etc.
Stone-getter – one who specializes in stealing precious stones.
Stone-John – a dope who can be or is easily swindled in a phony
stone transaction; a stupid person, etc.
Stones – diamonds, or other valuable gems.
Stone-tail – one who follows a heavily-stoned mark for the purpose
of robbery.
Stooge – one who acts on behalf of another, especially in obsequious
fashion, etc.
Stool – a spy for the police, employer, etc.; informer, etc.
Stoolie – one who stools, informs, etc.
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Stool-pigeon – a spy for the police, employer, etc.; informer, etc.
Stoop-tobacco – tobacco garnered from the street, etc., as cigarette
and cigar butts.
Stop – to interrupt; halt; close; kill; a stay; sojourn; the diaphragm
opening of a lens, etc.
Stop-one’s-clock – to kill; bump; eliminate, etc.
Stop-over – a short stay, as in a jail, en route to prison; a visit, etc.
Stormy-end – the blind-ends of a railroad baggage car.
Straight-‘n-narrow – within the law of God and man; the path to
eternal life and salvation.
Straighten-the-books – a deal in which the suspect agrees to cop-out
to unsolved capers, under threat and promises etc.
Strait-jacket – a heavy canvas contraption, coat-like, which is used
to subdue torture.
Stranger – a crimson-rambler; a fish, etc.
Strangle – to kill by compression of the windpipe; choke; to be
choked; suppressed, etc.
Straw-joy – marijuana.
Street – any place outside of prison; bricks, etc.
Stretch – a prison term; to hang, etc.
Stretch-rope – execute by hanging; to be hanged, etc.
Strides – a loose-fitting outer garment, covering the lower part of
the trunk and each leg separately; steps, etc.

178  
 
Stringers-‘n-knockers – fuses and dynamite caps.
String-of-horses – a number of prostitutes, harlots, etc.
String-post – that part of the body which is between the head and
the trunk and connects these parts; the neck.
String-up – to execute by hanging; hang, etc.
Strip – to rob; empty; clean out; undress; a method employed in
cracking safes, etc.
Stripes – a number of stripes to denote rank, service, etc.; prison
clothing; lashes, as with a leather, etc.
Stripper – one who cracks safes via the can-opener technique; one
who seductively disrobes, as a dancer, etc.
Strong – in-the-dough; firm; powerful, etc.
Strong-arm – to overcome by physical force; assault, etc.
Strong-arm-act – to strong-arm, as in a robbery; on-the-muscle, etc.
Strong-arm-artist – a thief who specializes in muggings, or any
caper where physical pressure is employed.
Strong-joint – a well-protected place.
Struggle – to contend with an enemy, task, problem, etc.; a dance; to
dance, etc.
Stud – a card game known as stud-poker; a stallion; a man, etc.
Stud-house – a house of punks for punks, etc.
Stud-master – the pimp in charge of a stud-house.

179  
 
Stuff – narcotics; loot; a line of phony conversation; sexual
intercourse, etc.
Suburbs – the outskirts; also, outside, as of a skirt, etc.
Succotash – a dish of corn and beans; a mixture; a mustache, etc.
Sucker – a gullible person; one easily imposed upon; a victim of a
swindle, etc.
Sucker-bait – a lure, as a dazzling fluff, used to steer a mark into a
position for clipping, etc.
Suck-the-bamboo – to smoke an opium pipe, or Chinese-saxophone.
Sugan – an old-style quilt or comforter.
Sugar – money; a luscious fluff, etc.
Sugar-moon – moonshine which is distilled from corn or cane sugar.
Super – a small portable timepiece; a watch; block, etc.
Supper-sneak – a second-story caper while the residents are having
chow, etc.
Sure-thing-worker – one who capers only on cinches.
Suzie-Q – an umphy Negro dance.
Swag – valuables garnered, as in capering; loot; swatch, etc.
Swag-man – a fence or receiver of stolen goods.
Swamp – to overcome, or be overcome; marshy ground, etc.
Swamper – a barroom clean-up man; a helper, as on a truck, etc.
Swatch – valuables garnered as in capering; loot; swag, etc.

180  
 
Sweat - under pressure; to question one severely in order to extract
information; to work hard; a state of anxiety, impatience, etc.
Sweat-board – a board with corrugated surface on which clothes are
rubbed in the process of washing.
Sweeper – an inmate attendant in a cell-block who operates locking
levers, cleans floors, delivers kites, etc.; lever-man, etc.
Sweet-Marguerite – cigar.
Sweet-pea – a desirable young quail, fluff, etc.
Swift – fast; fleet; rapid; also, a horse.
Swingin’-on-the-meat – attempting to curry favor, as with officers,
wheels, etc.
Switch – change; shift; divert; a device for turning electric current
on or off; to whip, etc.
Switch-13 – a state penitentiary.
Sworn – bound by oath.
Sydney-harbor – barber.
Sympathy-stick – a stick used in walking; a cane; a crutch, etc.
Tael – a measure of weight of eastern Asia; the custom tael of China
is 1 and 1/3 oz.; various local taels are somewhat less than this.
Tag – an identification card, with picture, furnished trusties who
work outside the walls.
Tag-man – a trusty who works outside the walls.

181  
 
Tail – to follow or shadow; one who follows or shadows; sexual
relations, etc.
Tailor’s-helper – a vicious dog.
Take – the proceeds; profit; to get or obtain; swindle; rob, etc.
Take-a-bank – take a shot of narcotics.
Take-a-dive – to quit; to plunge, as into water; to rob a disreputable
place; get married, etc.
Take-a-knock – to receive criticism; to be accused, etc.
Take-a-powder – to make a speedy departure; take it on-the-lam.
Take-a-rap – to receive a jail or prison sentence.
Take-a-ride – to be harassed; worked-over; killed, etc.
Take-a-runout-powder – to desert; escape; get rabbit-legs, etc.
Take-high – up with the mitts; reach, etc.
Take-it – to endure something.
Take-it-on-the-Arthur – run away; lam, etc.
Take-it-on-the-heel-‘n-toe – to run away; to leave hurriedly, etc.
Take-joint – a place which operates on a cut of the play, as in
gambling games, etc.
Take-low – to act humble; to cower, etc.
Take-off – to leave; scram; start, etc.
Take-one – to receive or give, as a blow, a bullet, etc.

182  
 
Take-stripes – to receive punishment, as lashes, etc.; also, to don
prison clothes, etc.
Take-the-electric-cure – to be electrocuted via the chair.
Take-the-rap – to plead guilty.
Talent-scout – a procurer for a house of prostitution.
Tallow-pot – the fireman on a train.
Tally – count me in; I understand; O-K, etc.
Tamp – to beat-up; to administer physical damage, etc.
Tank – a prison cell; a large barred room where prisoners are kept
during the day, etc.
Tantalizer – a fem who teases, tempts, etc., but is slow on the give;
the naughty, but nice? type.
Tap – borrow; loan; open, etc.
Tape – a long narrow strip of linen, cotton, paper, etc.; to tie-up, etc.
Target – an outside man used by safe-crackers, who stands-point
and gives the office, if necessary; that which one is shooting at; a
mark, etc.
Tar Heel – a native of or from the state of North Carolina.
Tart – a woman of the street; a wanton fem, etc.
Task – the amount of work demanded of an inmate; a definite work
assignment, etc.
Tata – a pistol, rifle, machine-gun, etc.
Taxi – to move; to coast; a taxicab, etc.
183  
 
Taxidermist – one who mounts animals, etc.
T-B – an infectious disease affecting any of the various tissues of the
body, and particularly the lungs; stir-bank, etc.
Tea – marijuana.
Team-up – to join forces with another, etc.
Tear-baby – one who mooches from women, or men with women,
and mewls out a sad story, etc.
Tears – bad news; precious gems; jewelry, etc.
Tea-pad – a place where marijuana is sold or smoked, etc.
Teck – a member of the police force whose function it is to obtain
information and evidence, as of offenses against the law, etc.; a
detective, etc.
Ten-percenter – one who locates, cases a mark, and passes the info
to a mob which pulls the capers, etc.
That’s-all-she-wrote – John came to prison. At first, his love wrote
him letters diurnally – then, once a week – then, the letters stopped
coming and she wrote post cards, until they, too, stopped. The final
card had just “Dear John” on it. His cellmate asked him what else
she wrote and John replied “that’s all she wrote.”
The ALMS Cup – a humanitarian organization, designed to make it
possible for the haves to share with the have-nots – based on the
teachings of Jesus Christ, and the founders of all of the historic
religions of the world – explained in the book “I Found Freedom In
Prison” by Hal Krug.
Thick-‘n-thin – chin.

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Thief – one who steals, especially secretly or without open force.
Thin-ones – small coins; slender, etc.
Third-degree – extreme and often illegal measures employed by the
law to secure information; confession pullers, etc.
Thresh-out-soup – to extract nitroglycerin from dynamite, a
dangerous undertaking.
Throw-a-Brodie – to commit suicide.
Throw-your-feet – to stem; panhandle; mooch, etc.; to dance, etc.
Throw-your-guts – to squeal, inform, rat, stool, etc.
Tick-tock – clock.
Tick-ten – five-o’clock; the time of day being doubled to confuse
anyone who might be on-the-Erie.
Ticket – the right material; the lowdown; info; a slip, usually of
cardboard, serving as evidence of the holder’s title to some service,
right, or the like; the list of candidate, etc.
Tickle-‘n-scratch – match.
Tie-pass – a fictitious permit from a railroad president for one to
walk on the ties, or tracks, etc.
Tight – get along well together; a close fit; drunk, etc.
Timber-wolf – one who works in the woods.
Timer – a safe or vault equipped with a time-lock, which permits the
opening device to operate only during certain hours.
Tin – a small amount of opium, etc.; cheap, etc.

185  
 
Tin-can – a broken-down heap; an automobile, etc.
Tinhorn – one who claims affluence, but who is merely a petty sport,
etc.
Tinkle-box – a piano.
Tin-roof – a free drink, so called because “it’s on the house.”
Tip – confidential information; to upset, etc.
Tip-one’s-duke – to expose one’s plans; to give away a secret.
Tip-over – to raid; to rob, etc.
Tipster – one who furnishes confidential information.
Tip-the-office – to give a warning, etc.
Togs – clothes.
Tomato – a female; fluff; quail, etc.
Tombs, the – the city prison of New York, so called because of the
gloomy appearance it presents.
Tombstones – teeth.
Tommy – a Thompson sub-machine-gun, etc.
Tommy-gee – one who operates a Thompson sub-machine-gun, etc.
Tommy-gun – a Thompson sub-machine-gun, etc.
Tommy Toy – a boy.
Tongue – conversation.
Tool – one who is “used” by another; an implement, as used by
burglars, etc.
186  
 
Too-much-time – more time than the facts warrant.
Toothpick – very slender person.
Toot-the-ringer – to ring a doorbell, etc.
Top – to execute by hanging; to hang; also, the seat of thought; the
head, etc.
Toppings – pastry, and particularly prison pastry.
Tops-‘n-bottoms – a homo who will pitch and catch, etc.
Torch-a-squib – to light a fuse leading to a charge of soup.
Torch-man – one who cracks safes or vaults with the aid of an
acetylene torch, etc.
Torpedo – a professional assassin; a gorilla, etc.
Toss – to perform a fake fit, etc.; to throw, etc.
Touch – a successful theft; borrow; mooch, etc.
Tower-bull – a prison guard who occupies a watchtower atop the
wall.
Town-clown – a village constable; town-whittler, etc.
Town-whittler – a village constable; town-clown, etc.
Trail – a track, scent, etc.; to follow; to track, etc.
Tramp – a vagabond who is not prone to indulge in labor; to walk,
etc.
Trap – the mouth; a hinged door, etc.; to catch in a trap, etc.

187  
 
Trapeze-artist – one who hitches rides beneath railroad cars, on the
gunnels, rods, etc.; a skilled performer on tightrope, trapeze, etc.
Trey – three.
Trey-of-knockers – three balls; the pawnbroker’s emblem, etc.
Trib – a female homo; lesbian; dyke, etc.
Tribby – same as “trib.”
Trick – an artifice, stratagem, etc.; prank; to cheat or swindle; a
young girl; the act of copulation, etc.
Trick-‘n-puzzle – hash.
Trigger-happy – inclined to be hasty in shooting, etc.
Trim – to swindle; neat; orderly, etc.
Trombenick – a Jewish tram, which is as rare as an honest
politician.
Trombo – a hobo who claims to be a pugilist, and aspires to be a
champion – he impresses the most naïve.
Troupe – a mob of thieves, etc.
Tubs – drums, as used by musicians; automobiles; fat people, etc.
Tulip – a blast of dynamite.
Tumble – to recognize; to be observed; an arrest; a fall, etc.
Tumble-‘n-trips – lips.
Tune-in – to listen; on-the-Erie; to eavesdrop, etc.
Turk – a ring bandit; a homo, etc.

188  
 
Turkey – a bundle; a cheap suitcase; a canvas bag, etc.
Turn-copper – to become a pigeon; an informer, etc.
Turnip – a watch; block; tick-tock, etc.
Turnkey – one who has charge of keys in a prison, etc.
Turn-on-the-heat – to put on the pressure; to start shooting, etc.
Turn-out – to be discharged from custody, etc.; attendance, etc.
Twelve-post – a dungeon, hole, etc.
Twidget – a woman’s snatch, muff, etc.; also, a female.
Twidget-polo – a game played by muff-divers, in which a round
chocolate or cherry is employed.
Twinklers – stars; eyes, etc.
Twist – a broad; female; fem; frail; twist; fluff; girl, etc.; to confuse,
etc.
Twist-a-dream – roll a marijuana cigarette.
Twist-‘n-twirl – a girl.
Twister – a mixture of cocaine and morphine; a key; a handle, etc.
Two-bit-crook – a petty larceny or small-time operator.
Two-by-four – door.
Two-time – to double-cross; to betray, etc.
Typewriter – a machine-gun; a girl; a mechanical writing machine,
etc.
Umph – full of life; sexy, etc.
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Uncle-‘n-aunts – pants.
Under-glass – being held by the police for investigation.
Underground-route – a mysterious route by which uncensored mail
or information is sent, etc.
Undertaker – one who works in a meat shop; digger, etc.
Uppers-‘n-lowers – teeth; dishes; plates, etc.
Up-the-river – in a jail or prison.
Ups – the upper-hand.
User – one addicted to the use of narcotics.
V – a five-dollar bill; a black-V, etc.
Vag – an idle wanderer; a vagrant; to charge with vagrancy, etc.
Valley-cat – a vagrant who travels up and down the great valley of
California, seldom leaving the route.
Vampire – an extortionist who preys on those who frequent whore-
houses; a reanimated corpse supposed to suck the blood of sleeping
persons, etc.
Vault – solitary confinement; the hold; prison, etc.
Vein-shot – a jolt of narcotics in the vein via the needle, etc.
Velvet – that which is clear profit; the tongue; smooth talk, etc.
Venus-curse – venereal disease.
Violator – a parolee who fails to live-up to the terms of his parole;
one who breaks the law, etc.

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Violin-case – the container in which a machine-gun is usually
carried, etc.
Viper – a marijuana smoker; a malicious or treacherous person, etc.
Vittles – food.
Wagon-tramps – migrant workers, sometimes whole families, who
work and mooch their way from place to place, etc.
Walk-the-plank – to parade before victims, witnesses, police, etc. for
possible identification, etc.
Walk-up-13-steps – to mount the gallows’ steps for a necktie-party.
Walled-city – a prison, etc.
Wallies – those who prefer prison, with its protective walls, to the
outside.
Walls – a penal institution which is surrounded by walls.
Wampus – a black cat with a white tail that lives in the tall timber.
Warden – the chief administrative officer in charge of a prison; P-K,
or principal keeper; the head-sweeper; the old-man, etc.
Weed – tobacco; marijuana; to take more than one’s share from the
loot; to clean out, etc.
Weeping-willow – a pillow.
Weigh-in – to meet another by appointment; to check in, etc.
Well-healed – having plenty of lucre; well-armed, etc.
Wetback – an alien, usually a Mexican, who illegally enters the
country by swimming the Rio Grande.

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What-have-you-got-on-you? – how much time are you hauling and
for what? How much money are you holding? Etc.
Wheelman – the man behind the wheel, the driver, as of a getaway
car, etc.
White-money – that folding greenback stuff, which is contraband in
most prisons.
White-mule – old fashioned corn liquor; homemade lush, etc.
White-puppy – milk.
White-slave – a white woman who is sold or forced to serve as a
prostitute.
Whitewash – milk from which the cream has been skimmed; skim-
milk; anything used to cover up defects, faults, etc.
Whiz – a pickpocket.
Whiz-mob – a gang of pickpockets.
Whiz-fall – a conviction for picking pockets.
Wife – generally, a woman joined in marriage to a man as husband;
shackles, etc.
Wing – to wound; arm; a block of cells in prison; a building, etc.
Wing-bull – a prison officer who is in charge of a cell-block or wing.
Wingding – an act to impress and arouse sympathy; to go crazy, etc.
Wingey – one with an amputated or crippled arm, etc.
Wino – a lush who is a confirmed drinker of wine.
Wire – a pickpocket; a telegram, etc.
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Wired-in – to have important connections.
Wolf – a homo who preys on youngsters.
Wood-butcher – a carpenter.
Wooden-kimona – a box or case in which a stiff is placed for
planting; a coffin.
Work – to operate any kinky racket; to influence or persuade,
especially insidiously, etc.
Working-stiff – one who labors for a living; a square-John, etc.
Work-over – to do bodily harm; to assault, etc.
Wren – a young girl.
Writer-of-short-stories – a forger; a rubber-check-artist, etc.
Wrong – to be unreliable; one who breaks the law, etc.
Wump – the rear-end; the south end of a mug-wump going north.
Yahoo – a hoosier who is lacking between the ears; a stupid person,
etc.
Yard – a thousand dollars; an outside recreation area within the
walls.
Yard-dick – a railroad detective who attempts to keep non-paying
passengers off the trains, etc.
Yegg – a criminal.
Yellow – lacking courage; a coward, etc.
Yen-pox – an opium pill which is ready for smoking.

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Yokel – a hoosier; a stupid person, etc.
YMCA – you must come across.

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