A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang: With Some Examples of Common Usages |
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Common terms and phrases
action Adjective Adverb amongst flat joint amongst gamblers amongst opium smokers amongst prison habitues ample bank note blow boob BOOSTER bunco BUNK burglars clerk confidence game cosmopolitan CRAB Criminal Slang crooks Current amongst confidence Current amongst flat Current amongst opium Current amongst pickpockets Current amongst prison Current amongst shoplifters Current amongst yeggs Current chiefly amongst Derived detective DICK display DONY dope fiends Example female FLOP genteel grafters GLIMS GLOMMED GONIF grift gun mob hobos imperative mood jerve JIGGER latter loss meaning merchandise MOLL moral Noun Current amongst Noun Current chiefly Noun General circulation Noun General currency Noun General usage operate parlance passenger pennyweighters penology person pimp pocket poke police preventable crime principal protection prowlers RATTLER secret sense signifies SQUAWK stall street sure-thing synonym term thief ticket tion valuables Verb Current amongst Verb General currency Verb General usage Verb Supra idem victim watch whilst
Popular passages
Page 26 - All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.
Page 50 - Paris casting ... to give the "phoney" broken-arm trick a cloak of respectability. — A- No. 1 , America's Most Celebrated Tramp, "The Trail of the Tramp," 72 (Erie, Pennsylvania). 1914 Lamos, adj. General currency. Gold-plated; flimsy; unsubstantial. Derived from the name of a firm of Chicago jewelers who supplied the cheap jewelry trade with 'PHONIES,
Page 15 - Broad is derived from the far-fetched metaphor of "meal ticket," signifying a female provider for a pimp, from the fanciful correspondence of a meal ticket to a railroad or other ticket, which latter originally was exclusively used by "gonlfs" to indicate "broad,
Page 39 - HEAVY WEIGHT, Noun Current amongst long-odds crooks. A desperate thief; a husky capable of delivering a dangerous attack in the event of personal encounter; a yegg; a burglar; a "stickup man.
Page 40 - I can't see you tonight; I've got a Jane on my hip." "What's the use of taking more on your hip?
Page 43 - Current in localities where North European laborers abound. A corruption of Hungarian, but employed to signify a Continental European who is unwashed and unnaturalized. HUSTLER, Noun General currency. A grafter; a pimp who steals betimes. The genteel thief is designated a "hustler.
Page 39 - next"; "on." Derived from the name of a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati, the legend has it, who knew so much about criminality and criminals that his patronymic became a byword for the last thing in wisdom of illicit possibilities. Example: "Chop the skirmish; he's hep.
Page 39 - HEEL, Noun General currency. An incompetent; an undesirable; an inefficient or pusillanimous pretender to sterling criminal qualifications. See "FINK"; "DEAD ONE"; "CRAB"; "LOB.
Page 38 - HAM, Verb General usage. To walk. Example: "If we get a tumble, it's a case of ham.
Page 84 - WOP, Noun Used principally in the east. An ignorant person; a foreigner; an impossible character.