A PSYCHOLOGIST’S DICTIONARY OF CRIME VOLUME ONE – ‘1’ TO ‘L’
All the coolest and best criminal vocabulary, delivered right to your e-mail address.
This part covers the number 1 to the letter L. For the rest of the alphabet, please follow this link.
1L
First-year Law student.
10-4
US police term meaning ‘OK’. Now sometimes heard in general conversation. Codes like this are attributed to Illinois State Communications Director, Charles Hopper. He made them up to facilitate radio conversations.
10-42
‘Ending tour of duty’ – see 10-4, above.
12
Probably derived from cop term 10-12, meaning ‘people on scene’, the term is now sometimes used to refer to police generally. Cf. Fuzz; Old Bill.
419 scam
Fraud that originated with the fax machine or even, sometimes, handwritten letters, but which really became successful in the internet age. An appeal comes, frequently, from Nigeria. It asks Westerners to feed an African child, subsidise a church, or shelter some shady money. There are always advance fees to pay, escalating into absurdity. The biggest victim of the 419 scam was an actual bank, Brazil’s Noroeste.
51s
Crack cocaine. The digits 51 rendered as Roman numerals also give the apparently-gratifying VI, or the middle letters of the word ’evil’. May also derive from 5150.
5150
Two related meanings: i) California police code for a person probably suffering mental illness, who is annoying the public. ii) US prison slang for an inmate who suffers some form of mental illness or otherwise needs psychiatric treatment. See also one-fifty-one.
709
Group of Chinese human-rights activists arrested on 9th July, 2015.
87th Precinct
Fictional police precinct on the island of Isola – a huge urban area clearly intended to represent Manhattan – invented by the American crime writer, Ed McBain (along with ‘Evan Hunter’ the pseudonym of Salvatore Lombino). McBain is considered the grandfather – or maybe Godfather – of the police procedural crime novel. He wrote no fewer than 55 books in the series. Some are better than others, of course, but when McBain got it right, as in Ice or The Empty Hours, there was no one to touch him. He also invented the crime genre sometimes called ‘forensic’. He was apparently irritated by the attention given to such writers as Patricia Cornwell, who got credit for a genre which he had a fair claim to have invented.
A
Abactor
Bad shepherd or cowhand who connives in stealing the flock or herd he or she is employed to guard.
Abbey clogs
Fetters worn round the ankles by prisoners.
Abigail
Backstreet abortion.
Abram man
Victorian English slang for a fellow who dresses as a beggar, may pretend to be mad, but will half-inch your pocket book, given half a chance.
Above snakes
Old West term meaning ‘still alive’, i.e., not yet buried. You can find a big dictionary of Old West terms here: Western Slang, Lingo, and Phrases – A Writer’s Guide to the Old West – Legends of America
Academician
Victorian English slang for a prostitute (today we might use the term ‘sex worker’) in a brothel, as opposed to a street walker.
Accountant
Seggs worker advertising online under a job description that is unlikely to see their account disabled.
Acid tests
Series of parties – better called ‘events’ – hosted by American author Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters (along with rock band The Grateful Dead) on the West Coast in the years 1965 and 66. These were rather uncontrolled experiments in taking LSD to open up what the author Aldous Huxley had called ‘The Doors of Perception’. They caused concern to some psychologists who were involved in research into the effects of the drug. Partly owing to the acid tests, LSD became a central feature of the anti-war, peacenik, hippie subculture of the late 60s. The acid tests remain famous today partly owing to Tom Wolfe’s book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, an example of The New Journalism. You can read more about the acid tests and their link to Psychology here: The Acid Tests | Origins (osu.edu)
Ack pirates
Those who plied their trade on fresh water, often the Thames in London. Their US equivalents were known less eccentrically as river pirates.
Agent in place
Government employee induced to work for a foreign government as a mole.
Agitprop
Propaganda, especially Communist, in the form of ‘art’ of ‘literature’. The inverted commas are really necessary. ‘Agitator’ and ‘propagandist’ are apparently the same words in Russian.
Algospeak
Words or phrases invented to help get around internet censorship systems. You’ll find a small amount of algospeak in this Dictionary.
Alien sex fiend
PCP (angel dust) mixed with heroin.
Alienist
Once used as a term for what today we would call a psychiatrist. Psychiatric patients used to be referred to as ‘aliens’. It comes from the Latin ‘alius’, meaning ‘other’. The term is still sometimes used in the US, to mean a psychiatrist who assesses the competence of a defendant to take part in criminal proceedings.
All day
Life sentence. ‘All day and a night’ – life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Ambush
Excellent old-timey Western slang for scales used by crooked merchants. It refers to the way they ‘lie in weight’.
Anchor
Stay of execution.
Anthropometry
‘The measurement of people.’ Science credited to the Victorian gentleman-scientist and all-round intellectual, Sir Francis Galton, who opened his Anthropometric Laboratory at South Kensington Museum in 1886. Galton, like many of his contemporaries, suspected that criminals had different physical appearance from civilians. Today, we’d be more likely to speak of ‘psychometrics’. See stigma.
Antifreeze
Heroin. For some of these drug-related terms (of which I’ve supplied a few) you have to wonder whether users just pick random nouns out of the dictionary.
Antinomianism
Religious view that the size of God’s grace or forgiveness is greater than that of our sin. The term originally referred just to the Christian faith but has been extended to others. Faith alone is enough to ensure salvation. This view has been interpreted to mean that anything a believer does is justified by their belief in God. It has been held – consciously and unconsciously - by many zealots to absolve them from any requirement to follow God’s law or that of the state.
Apache
Fentanyl.
April
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘weapon’, by way of ‘April fool’ – ‘tool’.
Aquatic product
See River crab
Argy-bargy
Heated argument. Term often used when the argument may turn to violence. Scots term from the 19th century, based on simple word-play around ‘argument’.
Around the turn
Withdrawal from addiction to hard drugs.
ASBO
Anti-Social Behaviour Order, issued to anyone aged 10 or more, listing the behaviours from which they must desist for at least the next two years. Possession of an ASBO is looked on as a badge of honour in certain circles.
Atavistic
Adj., relating to an earlier type, or ancestors who came before the parents. Used by the Italian criminal anthropologist, Cesare Lombroso, to explain ‘Criminal Man’.
Autem cackle tub
Flash term - meeting-house for dissenters; place for outlaws to meet.
Autem divers
Flash term - Dishonest church warders, or those who practice the dub lay in church.
B
Babbling brook
Crook. Not-very-good example of Cockney rhyming slang, which is at its best when you can get away with not using the actual rhyming word. But you can’t very well call someone a ‘babbling’, can you?
Babes in the wood
Those who have been caught and sentenced to the pillory.
Backmasking
Recording technique whereby a message appears on a musical track, which only becomes evident when the track is played backwards. It has been implicated in a number of crime-related controversies, for the alleged property of brainwashing listeners into actions they might not otherwise have contemplated. Rock bands mired in controversy include Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Slayer. Most famous is the Led Zeppelin classic, ‘Stairway to Heaven’, which contains a Satanic message when played backwards. The message makes no earthly sense, though, and, no matter how often I listen to it, I never take part in any Satanic activity. ‘Paul is dead’ said a back, masked message on a Beatles number, supposedly, and that went on to fuel an entire urban legend. The serial killer Richard Ramirez said that an AC/DC song inspired him to kill people.
Bacon head
Prison slang for paedophile or nonce.
Badger game
Short con – a woman, possibly appearing to be a sex worker, brings a mark back to a hotel room or similar. A man pretending to be her husband appears and demands payment.
Badgers
According to the New Universal English Dictionary of 1760, a ‘crew of desperate villains’ who threw the corpses of murder victims into a lake.
Badmash
As an adjective, naughty or misbehaving. As a noun, a notorious person or hooligan. Brought into the English language from Urdu during the years of the Raj.
Bag
American term for police uniform.
Bag of mystery
Victorian term for sausage. No one knows what’s in it.
Bagman
Term originating in espionage for an agent responsible for pay-offs.
Bait
Roadman slang for annoying or troublesome. No, really, it’s an adjective.
Balearic Islands
Islands in the Mediterranean, not far from the coast of Spain. The name comes from the same root as the word ballistics. It refers to the islanders’ ability, back in Classical times when different armies were trained in indigenous weapons, to use slingshots against their enemies. The Greek ‘ballein’ means ‘to throw’.
Ball
Verb: to put cocaine into one’s vagina.
Ballumn ranorum
Flash entertainment: a dance at which all the females are prostitutes. Dance held in a flash ken.
Balsom
Flash term for money.
Bamber
Mistake made by a police officer.
Bamboozle
May derive from the Scots, bumbaze, meaning to perplex. Bumbaze itself may come from a French word, embabouiner, which means ‘to make a baboon of’.
Banbury
Presumably named after the town in England, this is a flash term meaning to strike up an acquaintance with a stranger and travel together until such time as one recognises an opportunity to steal their belongings.
Bang and burn
Military or espionage operation designed to sabotage or even destroy enemy assets or emplacements.
Bank Note Detectors
Books carried around by the wary in the American frontier. They listed all the ‘banks’ that issued money, telling you which ones were real, which ones were not, and which bank notes you ought to avoid. That tells you how regular forgers and conmen were at that time.
Barnaby
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘judge’, by way of the Charles Dickens novel, Barnaby Rudge. As in, ‘The Barnaby’s the geezer what’s got a syrup on his barnet’ – literally, ‘The judge is the gentleman with the wig atop his head’.
Barney
Cockney rhyming slang for trouble, by way of ‘Barney Rubble’. Most often used to mean an argument or confrontation.
Baron Samedi
Perhaps the best known loa in voodoo. Baron Samedi is usually depicted dressed all in black, with a top hat, and often dark glasses. He sometimes has a skull for a face. Included here because he’s known as the father of the underworld, who provides guidance in matters of life and death. He chooses who will live and who will die and makes sure that the line between life and death is never crossed.
Barratry
Two meanings: i) The habit of continually starting new, irritating or vexatious, lawsuits. ii) Breach of duty by a ship’s crew or officers which results in physical injury or financial loss to its owner.
Bart Simpson
LSD.
Base crazies
Ever wondered how to refer to all those people you see every day crawling about on the floor, looking for their cocaine? Wonder no more. They have the base crazies.
Batty fang
Give someone or something a good beating. Victorian slang.
Beak
The chap in charge - usually a judge or barrister, but perhaps school master.
Beak runner
Obsolete 18th and 19th century slang for a police officer who was actively pursuing a case or learning about criminals.
Bear-garden discourse
According to the New Universal English Dictionary of 1760, this meant common, nasty, filthy talk.
Beazel
Term used by the actor Rosalind Russell in the 1939 film, The Women, and repeated by Joel McCrae in Sullivan’s Travels (1941). He uses it to refer to veronica Lake, of all people. It means something along the lines of ‘bitch’, ‘floozie’, or perhaps ‘moll’: words that the censor wouldn’t allow. The words seems to be an invention of the film studios. Others include ‘kronker,’ ‘tench’ and ‘chotsie’. You can learn more about these words here: The etymology of “beazel” (markmaynard.com)
Bedswerver
Shakesperean word for adulterer.
Beige
Verb: use one’s chemistry skills to change the colour of cocaine.
Belushi
Cocaine mixed with heroin.
Bennyworker
US criminal argot: pickpocket who wears a light coat for disguise.
Beretta lobotomy
Shooting oneself in the head.
Beshrew
To curse, or attempt to bring down evil. In voodoo, crossing. See also maleficium.
Billy Sunday
Baseball player and evangelical Christian whose voice – raised loudly against the evils of liquor – was important in passing the Eighteenth Amendment and bringing in US Prohibition: miserable for anyone who liked a glass of wine with their dinner, but wonderful for gangsters. So well-known did Billy Sunday become that anti-alcohol campaigners became known by the occasional nickname ‘Billy Sundays’.
Bing, The
Solitary confinement unit at Riker’s Isalnd prison. Inmate are known as Bing monsters.
Bing Monster
See Bing.
Bird
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘time’ in prison, by way of ‘bird lime’.
Birdwatcher
What spies call spies.
Blabagogy
Criminal environment.
Black bag job
One in which a spy or other agent gains entry to an office or other place where secret files are kept, in order to duplicate them.
Black hat
A ‘bad’ hacker, who gets unauthorised access to computer systems, presumably with ignoble intentions. Cf White hat
Black lady of espionage
Term used by Soviet intelligence agencies to refer to the CIA’s U2 spyplane.
Black propaganda
Issued by a party that either has plausible deniability, or cannot be traced.
Black rock
Crack cocaine
Black strap
Sack dyed black so as to be more or less invisible at night, used by Light-Horsemen to carry sugar off Game-Ships.
Blind tiger
Illegal drinking establishment, or speakeasy, of the sort that flourished during American Prohibition.
Bloomer
Early 20th century US argot. Failed crime: one that did not pay off.
Blue hero
Heroin
Blue law
Law put in place in numerous Western countries to prevent immorality on Sundays. After all, only the worst kind of people would want to spend the day visiting friend, shopping, or playing football. Blue laws were mostly put to an end with the UK’s Sunday Trading Act in 1994.
Blue wall of silence
Notorious police-department code. It means not ratting out one’s colleagues, even if they may deserve it.
Bluebottle
Cockney rhyming slang for police, by way of ‘bottle & glass’ – arse. A less-respectful cousin of the term ‘bottle’.
Bluesnarf
Joining of the words ‘bluetooth’ and ‘snarf’ (meaning ‘steal’). It simply means to get data though some sort of unauthorised or illegal connection. Cf wardrive.
Bobby
Colloquial and rather affectionate name for police officers. The London Metropolitan Police was established by Sir Robert Peel, and the term derived from his name. See also Peeler
BOLO
Policing term – Be On the LOokout.
Boot
Rookie police officer. Derives from the word ‘bootcamp’.
Bootleg
Noun - contraband material, which has been illegally created, transported, or sold. Derives from smugglers’ habits of concealing bottles or flasks of liquor in the legs of their boots. Often used now in reference to music. Or adjective, as in ‘Would you care to try this bootleg whisky?’ Verb – to smuggle or otherwise deal in bootleg merchandise.
Bothan
Scots word derived from ‘bothy’, meaning a place where alcoholic beverages are drunk on which the tax or excise duty has not been paid.
Botnet
Network of computers secretly infested with malware so as to do unpleasant thigns such as mount cyberattacks.
Bottle
Cockney rhyming slang for police officer, by way of ‘bottle & stopper’ – copper. See bluebottle; cop.
Bottomry
Term from maritime law – a ship and/or its cargo are used as collateral for a loan which will be used to finance the voyage.
Bowdlerise
A censored version of Shakespeare was published in 1818 by the English physician Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825). He removed everything that could not ‘with propriety be read to the family’. The act of removing offensive passages of literature thereafter become associated with his name. Interestingly, the use of the word has fallen off dramatically since about the year 2000, which is precisely the period during which the word ‘censorship’ lost the negative connotations it had previously had. There may be a link.
Brass
Cockney rhyming slang for prostitute, by way of ‘brass nail’ meaning ‘tail’.
Bridle-cull
Flash term for highwayman.
Broncho
Spy sent out ahead of the yeggs to locate potential jobs.
Bronx roll
When a car doesn’t quite stop at the Stop sign.
Brothel-creepers
Thick-soled shoes, often with suede uppers, at one time very popular with Teddy Boys. The term probably originated with Second World War soldiers fighting in North Africa. When adopted by Russian youths, brothel-creepers became known as ‘shoes on semolina’.
Bubble around
Attack someone or something in print, most likely in the Victorian newspapers.
Buccaneer
English name for pirates who worked around the Caribbean in the Golden Age of Piracy, especially around Haiti and Tortuga. It’s a corruption of the French word boucanier, which simply means ‘someone who uses a barbecue’. What a disappointing etymology that is.
Buck 50
US gang and prison slang, meaning Glasgow smile. The wound needs 150 stitches, hence the name. To real-estate and Wall Street types, it means $150 000; to fast drivers, 150 miles per hour.
Bucket
Cockney rhyming slang for jail, by way of ‘bucket and pail’.
Bughouse
Psychiatric hospital.
Bumboo
Tasty-sounding beverage made of rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg, ubiquitous in the West Indies of the 17th and 18th centuries – a favourite of freebooters.
Bum trap
Shoulder clapper who follows particularly closely behind the sheriff for whom he works.
Bumpology
Derisive term used by modern psychologists to refer to phrenology, a pseudo-science used for centuries in an attempt to identify criminals by the bumps on their heads (among other things).
Bunco
As a noun, confidence trick; as a verb, to engage in such a trick. Also spelt ‘bunko’.
Bundle the cull of the ken
Flash term meaning to tie up the man of the house by neck and heels.
Bush ranger
Australia’s answer to the highwayman or footpad. The bush ranger generally worked on foot, rather than horseback, and was sometimes treated, in that nation of impressive rebels, as something of an example to be followed.
Buttock
Flash term for street-walker. Buttock and file – a street-walker who is also a pickpocket.
Button man
Member of a criminal organisation, not of the highest rank. Sometimes used to mean ‘hitman’ or ‘assassin’. The derivationnis likely to come from the latter meaning – a hitman ‘pushes the button’ on a victim.
Buy a pig in a poke
To be the sucker or mark in a confidence trick. Pigs used to be sold in sacks, known as pokes, and some customers of a trusting nature used to buy them without seeing the actual pigs.
Buzzer
A police-officer’s badge. Dates to 1930s-era gangsters.
C
California Sunshine
LSD (see also Acid Test).
Call house
Domicile of a prostitue who may live alone but must be constantly available by telephone. Skang term current in the 1930s and 40s.
Cannon shooter
Obscure 19th and early 20th-century slang for a police officer involved in apprehending pickpockets or files.
Capeman, The
Two related meanings: i) Salvador Agrón, member of the Brooklyn gang, The Vampires. Murdered two teenagers in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen in 1959, under the false impression that they were members of a rival gang. Became the youngest person ever sent to Death Row in New York. There he became a born-again Christian, before escaping. He was recaptured and tried for the escape, but found not guilty because of mental illness. ii) Musical based on the life of Agrón, created largely by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott. Neither had any experience of writing or staging musicals, and Simon, in particular, was critical of Broadway productions generally. Despite receiving nominations for Tony Awards, The Capeman became one of the worst flops in Broadway history, although Simon’s music mostly had good notices. The interested reader can check out this site, although it definitely has too many ads: SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN - Lyrics - International Lyrics Playground
Capo di Tutti Capi
‘Captain of all Captains’, or ‘Boss of all Bosses’: title belonging to the chief of all organised crime in the United States. Nominally the title was retired by Lucky Luciano in 1931, and replaced by the Commission.
Carrot
Derogatory term for a police officer who does not come from Greater London.
Case
Verb meaning to watch a place extensively before committing to a robbery. Mostly commonly used in phrases like ‘case the joint’, where the ‘joint’ in question is a jug. See also git.
Cat road
Minor road of the sort used by Jazz Age yeggs to make their getaways. They were used extensively by Herman K ‘The Baron’ Lamm, the expert bank robber who never stuck up a joint he hadn’t thoroughly cased.
Catch the bus
Commit suicide.
Catchpole
Medieval English word for a sheriff’s deputy, whose job was to collect debts.
Cat’s kid
See broncho.
Catfish
Verb. Create fake online profile to as to lure another user – or mark - into a scam of some sort. See Romance scam.
Ceat
Medieval term for buying and selling, or trade. The word is the grandparent of the modern word ‘cheat’.
Chapbook
Small, cheaply-printed street publication, particularly common in the 17th and 18th centuries. Usually made of a single sheet of paper folded numerous times. Although all kinds of literature could be printed as chapbooks – from ballads to children’s stories - they were often lurid in content, and found a big audience at executions. Some give them partial credit for disseminating the legends of highwaymen, among other semi-romantic criminal types. Chapbooks were so-called because they were sold by chapmen – whom today we’d call travelling salesmen. Indeed, the Middle Ages word ‘ceapmann’ used to mean ‘merchant’.
Cheese eater
Person to betrays their associates. A rat of squealer. May derive from ‘cheese’ meaning money, or from the (incorrect) idea that rats enjoy cheese.
Chemism
Pseudo-scientific term invented by the writer Theodore Dreiser. Refers to the tension between one’s social responsibilities, all the things that tempt us away from them, and the ability to referee between the two.
Cheque (or check) washing
Scrubbing the payee’s name off a genuine paper cheque using some sort of chemical, inserting one’s own name, and then cashing the cheque at a bank or Post Office.
Chib
As a noun, a bladed weapon; or, verb, to use such a weapon on a victim. Glasgow slang.
Chicago overcoat
Coffin
Chicago typewriter
One of the more poetical terms invented during the era of Al Capone. Lawmen were using the Thompson semi-automatic, and so were bandits and mobsters. The term refers to the sound the gun made: the repetitious rattle of metal on metal.
Chicken
Kilogram of cocaine.
Child of God
Novel by the American author, Cormac McCarthy, about a necrophiliac named Lester Ballard. It contains one of the most chilling lines in modern fiction, in which McCarthy tells us that Ballard is ‘a child of God much like yourself perhaps’.
Chiv
Australian convict term for an improvised knife – any object that has been turned into a bladed weapon.
Chivomengro
Romany term for knife. From it we get chiv and shiv.
Chokey
Prison, or a term of imprisonment.
Chomo
Child molester
Cigar-store battery
Shop set up in the southern parts of Manhattan during the nineteenth century. It did not really sell cigars, no matter what your uncle told you he was nipping out for. A cigar-store battery was a front for a small-scale brothel.
City of Dreadful Delight
19th century London, which housed about 80 000 sex workers.
Clocker
Can refer to i) a car dealer who winds back the mileometer to make it look as if the car is newer than it really is, or ii) someone who times racehorses to try to work out their speed, or, iii) US street dealer in crack cocaine or heroin, who works around the clock, immortalised in Richard Price’s classic novel Clockers.
Cloture
Rule 22, passed under President Wilson in 1917, allowed discussion in the US Senate of a piece of legislation to be closed off, or ended, as long as a petition to do so was presented by 16 senators, and approved by two-thirds of the senators present and voting. This was an attempt – not to end, but at least to limit - filibustering. The author Joseph Heller would have approved of Rule 22, and not just because of its number. It only worked on any pending measure. Other Senate rules, though, required a motion in order to make a measure pending. Senators who wanted to indulge in a little filibustering therefore filibustered the discussion about making the measure pending, rather than the discussion of the measure itself. Hence Rule 22 legislated against itself – any attempt to change Rule 22 in order to put a limit on filibustering could itself be filibustered at the stage when senators were discussing the motion to make it pending.
Clue-puzzle
The kind of murder-mystery fiction sometimes produced by Golden Age crime writers, in which the detective has to piece together the clues to finish the puzzle. There is little blood in such stories, but a lot of ‘little grey cells’.
Cobbler
Quasi-legal forger; one who works for intelligence agencies
Cockchafer
A noun that leaves little to the imagination. A treadmill was installed inside ‘Houses of Correction’. Prisoners were forced to climb 8,640 feet every day. The punishment did no earthly good whatever, and that was the point.
Coffee sister
19th-century German term meaning ‘malignant gossiper’.
Cold prowl
Verb. To burgle a house while the owners are away.
Comfort room
Place in a psychiatric institution to which inmates can retreat to have a calm environment. Sometimes called, in fact, a ‘Quiet Room’.
COMINT
INTelligence that is gathered from COMmunications by the enemy. One of those annoying espionage terms.
Commission
Group of organised-crime leaders who ultimately make the decisions in the United States, much like the board of a giant corporation. It consists of heads of New York’s famous Five Families, plus the Chicago Outfit, and, from time to time, the heads of other families. The Commission appears still to be around, and still somewhat active, but it would be fair to say that its glory days are over.
Community violence
A public act which causes harm: perpetrator and victim are strangers.
Comstockery
After Anthony Comstock, notorious prude of late 19th-century New York City. It means censorship either of obscene materials – like letters or condoms – or behaviour considered immoral – such as abortion.
Conjo
Or, in voodoo, mojo. A small bag that contains ingredients required to cast a spell. Commonly it will involve such items as hair, coins, herbs, and so on.
Consequentialism
Philosophical view that the ethical value of an act derives from its consequences rather than from the nature of the act itself. Hence the exact same action may be morally right or wrong, depending on circumstances. Contrasts with deontology.
Convincer
A gat to a 1930-era gangster. Today it might be a hand ting.
Cop
This term – originally British, but now adopted across the English-speaking world – derives from the acronym COP, for Constable On Patrol. The term ‘copper’, therefore, has an unnecessary extra syllable.
Courts of Miracles (cours de miracles)
Hideouts of 17th or 18th-century Parisian criminals of every stripe, from prostitutes to pickpockets. So called because professional beggars who had been afflicted with all kinds of disabilities suddenly recovered their full health as soon as they arrived.
Cousin
Cockney rhyming slang for paedophile, by way of ‘Cousin Kyle’.
Covent Garden Nun
Woman working at the Great Square of Venus.
Cowards’ Highway, The
Suicide.
Cram
Verb. Place unauthorised charges on someone else’s phone bill.
Crash n dash
Leaving the scene of an automobile accident.
Creepy crawling
Term used by the ‘Family’ of Charkes Manson, who would sometimes enter another person’s property and move objects around. They didn’t harm anyone, but you can imagine how the homeowners must have felt when they came back. Jeffrey Melnick of the University of Massachusetts Boston has written an entire book about the Manson Family, called Creepy Crawling.
Crime corridor
The geography between Minnesota and Texas, that proved remarkably vulnerable to bank robberies, especially during the period 1925-32.
Criminal Man
Usual translation of the phrase used by the Italian criminal anthropologist, Cesare Lombroso, for the title of his important book, L’Uomo Delinquente. Lombroso’s fundamental idea was that certain people were just biologically criminal, because they were atavistic throwback to earlier stages of human evolution. They both behaved and looked differently from modern civilians.
Crimp
In the early days of New York City, one who drugged and robbed sailors, often in highly-questionable dive bars.
Crooked-nosed knave
An insult from the 1600s. How do we know? It survives in court records. A man called Warneford was sued for using this insult publically against another chap named Bridges.
Crossing
In voodoo, calling on a spirit to bring bad luck or actual harm to one’s enemies. See also gris-gris.
Cunch country
Where you end up when you go country.
Cunny warren
18th century slang for brothel.
Cutout
Espionage term for an intermediary trusted by two parties who wish to exchange information, instructions, etc. The cutout’s knowledge of the operation is extremely limited: they could in fact be ‘cut out’ of the operation and it would continue to run. Hence the possible capture of the cutout need not be a disaster for the people running the operation.
D
Daemonologie
Book about witches written by James VI and I of Scotland and England. James was obsessed with witches, and it was thanks to his insistence that witchcraft became illegal in England.
Dankrupt
Under the influence of marijuana.
Danny
Cockney rhyming slang for clue, by way of ‘Danny LaRue’.
Dark figure
It is difficult to know how much crime actually happens. There will always be a gap between official counts and the true number. No one knows how big the gap is. That is because not all crime is reported, and not all reported crime is recorded. Police or government estimates of ‘increasing’ or ‘decreasing’ incidence of crime should be taken with a pinch of salt and possibly some lime and tequila too. See also: validity and reliability.
Data streaming
Creation of fake credit cards by fraudulent means, using information gathered by means of hacking. Done by blackhats.
Day plunderer
A man who would help unload a ship for free, in the hope of making off with as much plunder as possible, often concealed in the crown of the hat or down the trousers. Also known as Heavy-horsemen. Cf Light-horseman.
daylight, Fill someone with
Shoot them.
Dead Man’s Hand
In poker, ace – eight of spades plus ace-eight of clubs (two pair). Named in honour of the murder of Wild Bill Hickock, lawman, shootist, and all-round prevaricator who was killed by the gambler Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota. Supposedly, Hickock was holding this hand when he died (uncharacteristically failing to sit with his back to the wall). This may not be true and is in any case unverifiable.
Death-hunter
Late 18th and also 19th-century slang, meaning, originally, an undertaker, and then, later, a journalist who wrote about murder.
Dechristianisation
A term invented during the French Revolution to mean exactly what it sounds like: removing religion from the citizens’ lives. Churches were closed and priests forced to marry.
Deontology
Strictly, the study of the origins of ethics. Usually used to mean the philosophical position that some acts are right or wrong owing to the nature of the act itself rather than its possible or probable consequences. Contrasts with consequentialism.
Deuce
(i) Nickname for 42nd Street in Manhattan, once New York City’s pit of iniquity. (ii) Drunk driver. (iii) Another word for ‘devil’. Make of this coincidence what you will.
Devil’s dandruff
Cocaine.
Devil’s mark
Literal physical mark placed by Satan on the body of an Early Modern witch or warlock to show that they belonged to him. It could be a birthmark, piles, freckles, almost any imperfection would do. Idea later adapted by the Positivist Criminologists of the 19th century who used the word stigma. Cf. Witches’ mark.
Dick
Peculiar colloquialism for ‘detective’. Often used in the phrase ‘private dick’. It may derive from US criminal underworld slang ‘to dick’, meaning ‘to watch’, which may itself derive from a Roma word, dekko – ‘to look’. Alternatively, it may come from pre-Sherlock Holmes era detective stories written under the pseudonym ‘Dick Donovan’. This seems unlikely since this earliest use we have of ‘dick’ for ‘detective’ seems to be 1908. It may just be a contraction of the word ‘detective’, of course, but let’s hope not. See also House dick.
Dicks’ Bureau
Detective Bureau. Imagine working hard in your chosen career, making a few good arrests, and studying hard for your exams, only to find you’ve been promoted to the Dicks’ Bureau.
Diesel
Tea served in UK prisons.
Digital fentanyl
Provocative name given in later 2022 by Congressman Mike Gallagher to the social media site TikTok.
Ding
Seems to the slang exclusive to US prisons. Inmate hard enough that you don’t want to tangle with him unnecessarily, but not one with enormous physical or political power.
Ding-dong
Heated argument. Comes from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Roughly equivalent to argy bargy.
Discard
The less-valuable agent whom their government allows to be captured in the hope of protecting more valuable agents from detection.
Dog whistle
Phrase used by participants on either side of the culture wars to refer to coded messages supposedly (and sometimes actually) given to their supporters by public figures. A contributor to our growing unease in the face of rampant public conspiracy theories.
Dogana
Customs; the entity responsible for collecting taxes and excise duties, and preventing smuggling.
Dollymop
Victorian term for a part-time prostitute who probably worked to supplement her meagre pay in some other, more conventionally respectable, line of employment.
Doxy
Medieval word, meaning, at first, the partner of a criminals, later, a prostitue. Hence it seems to be the old-timey equivalent of the word moll.
Draconian
Draco was a law-giver in 7th-century BC Athens. The word, referring to rules or laws that are ‘harsh’ or ‘severe’, derives from his name.
Driving award
See paperwork.
Dumpy
Shotgun (US gang slang).
Dub-lay
Obsolete slang for pickpocketing.
Duster
Second door of a safe, located inside the first one.
Dynamite
Heroin mixed with cocaine
E
E-man
A person seeking lawful status who, in their enthusiasm, has tried somewhat too hard, by making an attempt to escape from prison.
Ecological validity
Jargon word used in Psychology and other, related, sciences, to mean the extent to which one’s findings apply in ‘the real world’, outside the laboratory.
El Rey
Fictional refuge for criminals invented by the pulp-fiction writer Jim Thompson. It featured in his novel The Getaway (1958). El Rey sounds a decent-enough place to hide from the law, just as long as your money lasts. Once it does, life gets very bad indeed. I shan’t spoil the novel for you with the details. You can check out this link instead:
The Getaway Review, and why I LOVE Jim Thompson – 50 dollars a day plus expenses (wordpress.com). At the end of the crime/vampire move, From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996), it is revealed that the criminals were fleeing to El Rey all along. ‘You don’t want to go there,’ George Clooney tells Juliette Lewis, and he’s right.
Elephant ears
Rare term for a police officer – the idea is that, cops listen so carefully to so much criminal chatter, that their ears grow big through exercise.
Elevator
US criminal argot: Hold-up man.
Elliot
Cockney rhyming slang for mess, by way of ‘Elliot Ness’.
Escort
Spy who leads an enemy defector along their escape route.
Evening wheezes
Victorian term for fake news. Presumably refers to the editors of evening newspapers trying to shift copies.
Exclusion room
See Padded cell.
Exodust
Verb. Excellent jive term meaning flee.
Eye
Often used in hard-boiled fiction as a abbreviation of the phrase ‘private eye’. Used repeatedly and indelibly in Marc Behm’s novel, The Eye of the Beholder.
F
Fact
Once used in English law as a synonym for ‘crime’. The word derives from Roman law, which was concerned with the factum, meaning the deed, or crime. Once an English jury agreed on a fact, no one was allowed to argue. We use the word in the same way even now. Facts leave no room for argument.
Fake Book, The
Collection of jazz standards – often based on Broadway tunes or Tin Pan Alley favourites - carried around by all self-respecting jazz musicians for decades. It offered just enough information about each tune for the musician to ‘fake’ it when joining other jazz musicians for a jam session. It was entirely illegal, since it broke copyright in just about every conceivable way. Think of it as the kind of cheat sheet that unscrupulous students take into exams and use when no one is watching. Today, you can but entirely legal fake books, which of course are not fake books at all any more. The Fake Book was overtaken by The Real Book. The Fake Book was inspired by Tune-Dex, which you can read about here: Tune-Dex cards (cdlib.org)
Familiar
See imp.
Fanny Adams
Expression used colloquially to mean ‘nothing’ or ‘a thing of no value’. The macabre derivation is from a young girl who was the victim, it seems, of a man called Frederick Baker, who literally tore her body apart. Looking unhappily at their rations, sailors in the Royal Navy lamented that they looked ‘just like Fanny Adams’.
Farm, The
CIA training facility located in Camp Peary, Virginia, unacknowledged by the US Government, but so well-known I can even write about it here. It is used to train officers from various intelligence groups on topics such as interrogation techniques. It also hosts conferences and working groups. It was initially used as a training camp for the United States Naval Construction Battalions, or Seabees. This involved evacuating two entire towns. Later it became a detention centre for German Prisoners of War. Camp Peary became a forestry reserve for five years before the Navy came back in 1951.
Fetish
In voodoo or hoodoo, any object invested with magical powers. It might be a string with knots in it, an alligator tooth, graveyard dirt, or whatever else works.
Feux follet
In the American Deep South, lights in the sky that make travellers get lost. They may represent the souls of unbaptised children, or, alternatively, a soul banished from Hell.
File
Flash term for pickpocket.
Filibuster
Measure used by politicians to prevent a bill from being voted on, and thereafter passed into legislation. It simply consists of talking and talking and talking, often about unrelated issues, until it is too late. The term is strongly associated with the US Senate. (Bear with me, this gets interesting.) For 111 years after 1806, there was only one way to stop a US senator from talking. It was by unanimous consent, but of course that was never going to happen (at least some senators would be on the side of the filibuster after all). This spoiling tactic got its name from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means what it sounds like – freebooter. That word passed into Spanish as filibustero, because the ships used by Caribbean pirates was called a filibote. Because the process of speaking forever in a legislative chamber was like piracy, or hijacking, it became filibuster. See also cloture.
Finder
Member of a gang of yeggs who is responsible for blowing up the safe, perhaps using oil.
Finesse
To steal something in a slick way that may be difficult to detect.
Finger smith
Victoria British slang term for pickpocket. After transportation to Australia, the term took on a second meaning – midwife. The very first midwives to arrive in Australia, after all, were transported convicts.
Film noir
The best kind of film: think of Out of the Past, Sunset Boulevard, Night of the Hunter. Made largely in the expressionist style by film-makers who were exiled from Nazi Germany during the Second World War, these films are characterised by heavy shadows, moody lighting, and terse, hard-bitten dialogue. Their popularity was not hurt by the fact that these films came along at about the same time as pulp crime fiction reached its apex of popularity. Chandler, Hammet, and Goodis got involved; so, too, did Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. Many of the classics were based on novels by members of the hard boiled school.
Fish
Prison newbie. Also known as New booties.
Fish Tank
American prisons’ intake processing unit.
Flake
Street name for cocaine.
Flash
18th century English thieves’ cant or argot. It’s mostly obsolete now, but its influence can be felt in the language of English-speaking underworld in the UK and US, as well as in fantasy role-playing games. Also called Peddlers’ French.
Flash cove
Thief.
Flash for cash
Traffic camera.
Flash ken
Brothel.
Flash mollisher
Low order of Covent Garden Nun, working at the Great Square of Venus.
Flimflam
Worthless rhetoric, or another term for a confidence trick.
Flipping chickens
Selling marching powder in large quantities. Wholesaling cocaine.
Floater
A person used just the one time for purposes of an espionage operation. The floater may not even know they are a floater.
Foolish powder
Street name for heroin.
Foot-and-mouth disease
Term from the north of England. Swearing followed by a kicking.
Footpad
Low-class highwayman who worked on foot, rather than horseback. Cf. Bush ranger.
Foot scamperer
Another term for footpad.
Fornication
Well, you know what this means. But did you know that the word derives from the arches, or fornices, of Rome, where whores would offer al fresco sex in the olden days of the Grand Tour? You do now.
Freebooter
Cooler term for pirate or other plunderer.
Freedom speeding
The kind that happens as a consequence of leaving an area of heavy traffic in which one had to drive very slowly and carefully. It relates to the psychological idea of ‘risk homeostasis’, which implies that we try to keep our level of driving risk stable, so that if one part of our trip seems extremely safe, we may compensate on others.
French lady
South African word for prostitute. The derivation comes from the sheer number of European women who were trafficked in the Victorian period.
Frenchified
Infected with syphilis (the ‘French disease’), usually as a result of prostitution or other sex work.
Fridging
Controversial trope from superhero comic books in which a female character is killed solely in order to motivate a male character to avenge her. The name comes from a 1994 issue of the DC comic book Green Lantern, in which Kyle Rayner literally finds a dead body in with his milk and cheese.
Friend
Member of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Frog march
The same as a perp walk, except that it may not necessarily involve the press or public display.
Fuzz
Police. Originally a British term, now adopted across the English-speaking world. The etymology seems obscure. Cf. Bobby; Peeler; Old Bill.
G
G-man
Name for FBI agents, apparently bestowed on them without their knowledge by American criminals of the 30s. FBI agents were apparently surprised when George ‘Machine-Gun’ Kelly surrendered to them (1933) shouting, ’Don’t shoot, G-men!’ They didn’t know who he was talking to. Reputedly, ‘G’ stands for ‘government’. Some prefer to place the term’s origin in Ireland, where it meant a plainclothes detective, or dick. They claim the ‘G’ stood for nothing at all. The ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly story is better.
Game-ship
One targeted by Light-Horsemen.
Gammon
Flash term. Two or more people may be involved in pickpocketing. The file steals the victim’s wallet while others jostled them about, so that they don’t notice. Those who do the jostling are called Gammons.
Garda
Irish term for police officer, often corrupted to the less-formal ‘guard’.
Garden
Cockney rhyming slang for magistrate, by way of ‘garden gate’.
Gaslight
Verb – to manipulate someone psychologically into mistrusting their own perception of reality. Not much used before the social-media era, but, since 2010, quite ubiquitous. Term derives from the 1944 film Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman and Jospeh Cotten. A husband keeps turning down the light in their home, in order to convince his wife she’s going our of her mind.
Gate fever
Prisoner’s excitement as the end of their term approaches.
Gauldry
In Scotland, a row of houses leading up to the gallows. The Gauldry (with the definite article) is a small town in Fife. That ‘d’ has been present in the name only for a couple of hundred years.
Gay Gordon
Cockney rhyming slang for parking warden.
Gaycat
Obsolete US criminal argot, dating to 1930s and 40s: Thief who operates only when compelled by circumstances.
Ghost
Verb. Use identity of a deceased person to conduct various financial transactions, such as opening bank accounts or taking our credit cards.
Git
Getaway map as used by Jazz Age bank robbers and other yeggs. Like cat roads, gits were championed by Herman K ‘The Baron’ Lamm, one of the greatest of the yeggs.
Glasgow kiss
Headbutt in the face. Cf Liverpool kiss. See also: Glasgow smile
Glasgow smile
Scarring left behind by a knife-wound to the face, running from the corners of the mouth towards the ears. Also known as a ‘buck 50’.
Go country
Remove oneself to a far-away spot in order to deal drugs.
Go medieval
Verb: to adopt a violent solution to some problem or other.
Gobemouche
Simple-minded person who would make a good mark for a con trick in the Middle Ages.
Going to bat
Coming up for trial.
Golden Age fiction
Mostly-British school of crime fiction, usually dated to about 1913. Golden Age fiction dealt in clues and puzzles and sometimes clue-puzzles. Authors include Marjorie Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers, and Agatha Christie.
Gooseberry ranch
Now obsolete US slang – brothel.
Grandparent scam
This is when a criminal pretends to be, or be representing, a child who needs money quickly. Grandparents or other relatives are hurried into transferring funds for no legitimate reason. Identities are usually constructed from information left on social media.
Grass-eater
Cop (particularly in the NYPD) who takes part in minor corruption. Cf meat-eater.
Grasshopper
Cockney rhyming slang for police, by way of ‘copper’.
Great Square of Venus, The
Area around Covent Garden in London in general, and Drury Lane in particular. For about 200 years from the 16th century onwards, a great centre of the metropolis’ sex trade.
Green death
American term for marijuana, not used with great seriousness.
Green mile
Colloquially, the route towards the inevitable. Derived, probably, from the Stephen King novel of the same name, in which the ‘mile’ from the condemned cell to the electric chair had a green floor.
Grendel
Two meanings: i) The great, fearsome antagonist in the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. ii) Named after him, a character invented by Matt Wagner for his massive comic-book series. It started in 1982 and is still painting a portrait of the nature of evil and violence across time and space.
Grippy sock vacation
Commital to a psychiatric facility. The term comes from the non-stick socks with which patients are, apparently, issued, so that they do not need shoes or slippers.
Gris-gris
Usually a bag filled with stuff like nail clippings or herbs, used in voodoo to ward off bad luck, perhaps from crossing.
GSR
Gun Shot Residue, left behind after firing a gun.
GSW
One of the daftest abbreviations ever, since it its spoken form it contains more syllables than the original, GunShot Wound.
Gumshoe
Two meanings: i) American slang for detective, particularly a private dick. The word was originally a verb, meaning ‘to sneak around’. It then came to apply to plain-clothes detectives. It may come from the idea of soft-soled shoes, made of rubber, which of course derives ultimately from gum. ii) In homage to meaning i). A British company called Gumtec now makes shoes partly out of recycled gum. They called them ‘gumshoes’.
Gunfighter
Chiefly a modern term. It appears to have been used first in 1874. The gunfighter’s contemporaries would have called him a shootist.
Gunfighter Nation
The United States of America, of course. Term invested to account of the remarkable persistence of violence. The idea is that the frontier days imbued later history with a ‘template of violence’ which has formed its pattern ever since.
Gunsel
Not just any old hired gun, or torpedo, but one who may be reckless, homosxual, or both. Vintage 1930s.
H
Hag
Has two, intriguingly-related, meanings: i) an ugly old woman, ii) a witch, or one who consorts with demons and performs maleficium.
Half-inch
Cockney rhyming slang for steal, by way of ‘pinch’. Unlike most Cockney rhyming slang, this term is in pretty much general use.
Hamartophobia
Fear of sin.
Hand ambulance
Vehicle used by police in the Victorian era, not just for transporting people to hospital, but also for restraining violent offenders. Hand ambulances contained useful straps that allowed police to haul suspects straight off to the styation without too much interference. Hand ambulances could also be used for getting drunkards home. They looked a lot like big, adult-sized perambulators.
Hand ting
Pistol (US gang slang).
Hanging tree
Gallows – or, in the US, tree used for lynching.
Hard-boiled fiction
School that grew up in the USA in the early decades of the 20th century, in reaction to Golden Age fiction. The work was more intense and realistic than anything that had appeared in crime fiction before. Writers like Hammett, Chandler, and James M Cain wrote about what it was like to fight, blackmail, kill, or to investigate such crimes.
Hard Case Crime
Interesting crime-fiction imprint, publishing both new and classic – often re-discovered – novels in their highly distinctive white-red-black colours with gold tag. Painted covers hark back to the good old days of pulp fiction.
Harman
Flash term for police constable. See also Bobby and Peeler.
Heave a booth
Flash term for burgling a house.
Heavy man
See finder.
Heifer-heels
Ingenious device made and worn by Prohibition-era gangsters in the United States. Attached to the bottom of the shoe, they made prints on soft surfaces like the footprints of cows, so the police did not know which way the criminals had escaped.
Hell Corner
Haymarket, London, during the 19th century. So called because of the women who had been ‘trampled and crushed into devils by society’.
Helping police with their enquiries
Euphemism dating to a period of great public politeness, meaning ‘under arrest’.
Helter Skelter
Beatles song supposedly interpreted by Charles Manson as being about a coming race war. At the site of the second of their mass murders, one of the Manson Family left the misspelt words ‘Healter Skelter’ in blood on the refrigerator. The concept was enlarged upon hugely at trial by former Manson Family member, Paul Watkins. He claimed that the Family planned to escape Helter Skelter by living in a bottomless pit, where it would multiply into 144,000 people. This is the story famously told by the attorney, Vincent Bugliosi, in his book of the same name, once, (and possibly still,) the bestselling true-crime book ever published. The journalist Tom O’Neill, in his book Chaos, expresses scepticism.
Henry VIII
Cocaine. This comes not via the idea that it takes your head off, but via the measure – one eighth of an ounce.
Herbivore
Heavy or regular user of marijuana.
Hillbilly heroin
Oxycontin – a prescription pain medicine.
Hobbit
Compliant, well-behaved prisoner.
Honey trap
When a sexually-attractive agent is used as the bait to lure an enemy into what may prove to be a compromising position.
Hooligan
Often preceded by the word ‘football’. A violent person, probably a vandal, who acts out in public. Term seems to derive from a villain named Patrick Hooligan, active in London in the early 1800s.
Hoosegow
Informal American term for prison.
Hoover flag
Pocket turned inside out. The idea is to show that you have no money and are therefore an unpromising target for thieves. Named after the American President who presided over the Great Depression. Cf. Hooverville
Hooverville
American version of a shantytown, erected during the Great Depression. Cf. Hoover flag
Horror
The horror genre is considered by fans to belong inside the ‘fantasy’ circle on the great Venn diagram of literature. That doesn’t prevent it overlapping the crime fiction circle. The vital point is that both genres require there to be some source of evil, (or at least danger). In either genre, evil may come from either inside or outside. An example of ‘inside’ horror is Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde; an example of ‘outside’ horror is Dracula. A similar differentiation occurs in the crime story: compare, say, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me with any Sherlock Holmes adventure. This may be why so many of either genre’s best writers seem to find it easy to slip into the other. Indeed, Edgar Allan Poe had a hand in inventing both. The Venn diagram’s most consistent wanderer may be Robert Bloch, author of such suspense-horror novels as Psycho and Firebug. You could think, too, of that one-man industry, Stephen King, usually thought of as a horror novelist, but who often publishes in the Hard Case Crime imprint.
Horrorism
Term coined by the novelist Martin Amis. It refers to crimes that aren’t quite ‘terrorism’, since they do not fill one with terror so much as an emotion closer to revulsion. One example is suicide bombing. It leaves even those spectators who survive splattered with unpleasantness.
Hostage load
Your household goods help for ransom by a removal company who lured you in when you were moving house by offering the lowest rates on the market.
Hot dogs
Low-quality shoes issues to convicts on release from prison. They are made of cardboard and shoddily put together.
Hot heroin
That kind that you poison and give to an enemy, possibly an informant.
Hot-sheet motel
One usually paid for by the hour, used by sex workers and their clients.
Hot words
New slang invented largely by young Chinese to help bypass national internet censorship.
House dick
A private detective employed usually by a hotel, but possibly by a department store.
House Select Committee on Assassinations
It is often forgotten that the Warren Commission was not the only large-scale official investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. The HSCA concluded in 1979 that Lee Harvey Oswald did indeed fire the bullets that killed the President, but that, contra the Warren Commission, at least one other gunman probably fired at him, too. It claimed that there was probably a conspiracy, but did not point the finger at any of the usual suspects – organised crime, Cuban refugees, Fidel Castro, the Soviet government, etc. The HSCA agreed broadly with single bullet theory and levelled criticism at both the CIA and FBI for their handling of the case. Here is a link that – if you are new to Kennedy-assassination literature - will plunge you into a rabbit-hole: Table of Contents | National Archives
Hue & cry
The phrase comes from the obligation on all law-abiding members of Middle Ages society, to shout out if they witnessed a crime. A ‘hue and cry’ alerted the other good people thereabouts to come and help pursue or capture the criminal.
HUMINT
Intelligence or information gathered by espionage agents from human sources of one sort or another.
I
Ice
Few words have more criminal associations: i) diamonds, particularly ones taken in a heist, given the resemblance of diamonds to ice cubes; ii) to kill someone, especially when it is a gangland hit; iii) either of the drugs, ecstasy or crystal meth; iv) money taken off the gross before it is officially counted (or skim); v) (archaic) to escape quickly from the scene of a crime; vi) Title of one of the outstanding novels in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series.
Imp
Or familiar – an animal that communicated between Early Modern witches and Satan. Often a cat, but it could be a toad, snake, or more or less anything else. See Witches’ mark.
Indulgence
The selling by the church of permission to commit sins, or forgiveness of past sins. It can be seen as a form of simony. See also sin eater.
Innocent postcard
Sent by an agent to, possibly, their handlers, or maybe a cut out, simply to prove their own continued existence or security. The medium, in this case, truly is the message.
Instant Zen
LSD
Iron gag
Like the tranquillizing chair, an instrument used in Quaker prisons of the East Coast of the USA. It enforced stillness and silence. An iron pallet was placed over the tongue and forced in as far as possible. The prisoner was handcuffed with arms behind him, attached by a chain to the gag. Any movement would serve to force the gag even further into the mouth and press on the jaws and jugular vein. This produced all kinds of pain. The prisoner was rendered into a state ready to receive the Inner Light and who could doubt it?
J
J-cat
Two meanings here: i) American prison slang for an inmate who is suffering some form of psychological disorder. Ii) Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce.
JD
Juvenile Delinquent. By 1956, US authorities were arresting over a million teenagers a year. It seemed as if something new and unprecedented was happening. And it was. The media as much as the teenagers themselves created the phenomenon of the juvenile delinquent. Asked ‘What are you rebelling against?’ Marlon Brando replied, ‘What have you got?’
Jack Ketch
Inept executioner of the 17th century. His name was used after his death to refer to executioners in general. The phrase ‘Jack Ketch’s necklace’ came to mean the noose.
Jack the Ripper
Cockney rhyming slang for stripper.
Jackrabbit parole
American term meaning a runaway escape from the clutches of the law.
Jam sandwich
Now-outdated UK colloquialism for police car, derived from the distinctive appearance: white with a horizontal red stripe.
Jam shot
Soap up all the cracks in a safe apart from one. Pour oil into the remaining one. Presumably, this concentrates the explosive power.
Jive
The slang language spoken by hipsters: by which I mean the Cab Calloway-era hipsters.
Joe Rook
Cockney rhyming slang for crook.
Joey
Public face of a drug gang. The person employed to sell drugs to customers. May possibly be a zoomer selling zulu.
Jokes
Roadman slang for events that are not especially amusing.
Joy house
US slang for brothel.
Juju
A wonderful word: i) having the magical property of bestowing good luck; ii) a reefer or joint; iii) Nigerian style of music; iv) semi-religious or at least spiritual belief originating in West Africa.
Jug
Jazz-Age term for a bank.
Jug marker
Member of a gang of yeggs whose job was to case a jug before the robbery.
Juice
A contender with ice for the word with the largest number of known criminal associates: i) respect, power, charisma and all the other things everyone aspires to; ii) steroids, or performance-enhancing drugs, particularly when used by an athlete illegally to improve their performance; iii) irritant sprinkled on boxing gloves with the intention of having it seep into the opponent’s eyes.
Jumper
Specialist thief who takes property from offices.
Justice-involved person
Modern euphemism for felon.
K
Kanga
Cockney rhyming slang for prison officer, by way of ‘kangaroo’ – screw.
KE
See QE, which the author prefers because QE just sounds better.
Keister
Verb: a less-than-hygienic way of smuggling contraband into prison.
Kermit
Verb: kill oneself. From ‘commit suicide’ but also apparently a reference to an event in Sesame Street.
KG
‘Known Gambler’. This phrase seems to be used especially to refer to corrupt American cops.
KGB punch
Efficient method of murder whereby a person subjected to extreme cold – such as in the Russian gulags – is punched over the heart. Seems to be the method most likely used to kill the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
Killer diller
In jive talk, a major thrill.
Kite
Prisoner’s note passed to others by surreptitious means.
Knight of the High Toby
Highwayman.
Kojak light
One placed on the roof of an unmarked police car to get other road users out of the way. Named for the television show, Kojak, of course.
Kompromat
The clue is in the name – compromising material that has been created or collected for the purpose of blackmail. Usually used when politicians or other influential public figures are involved.
Kruger spoof
Verb, lie. Victorian-era colloquialism. I wish I knew the etymology of this.
Krunked
Splendid word, meaning under the influence of marijuana.
L
L-Pill
Suicide pill used by agents involved in espionage.
L-WOP
American prison slang: Life WithOut Possibility of Parole. Cf all day.
Lamster
Literally, ‘the one who runs’ – usually a member of a pickpocketing gang who runs away with innocent marks’ wallets, watches, pocketbooks, and so on.
Land o’Darkness
Jive term for Harlem.
Lane of shame
In Italy – home of speedsters - the part of the motorway where people drive if they want to stick to the legal speed limit.
Laughing academy
Psychiatric institution. The earliest use dates from the 1910s, but the term was popularised (if that’s the word) when used in the TV show, The Sopranos.
Lead poisoning
Old West euphemism meaning shot, as in, ‘The saloon had three men for breakfast today. They all died of lead poisoning’.
Leary
LSD – via the Harvard psychologist and counter-culture hero of the 1960s, Timothy Leary.
Leather slapping
The drawing of a handgun from a holster, usually applied with reference to gunmen of the Old West.
Left-handed cigarette
Marijuana joint.
Leg bail
American: to run away from police. Cf. Jackrabbit parole.
Legend
Term used by the CIA. It means cover for an operation, or the operation itself. Likely to refer to a ‘false biography’ of a spy or other agent in the field. Edward Jay Epstein used the word for the title of his book about Lee Harvey Oswald.
Levereter
Or ‘liver-eater’. Medieval term for a person who is willing to hurt others for their own benefit.
Light-Horseman
Man who worked as part of a gang at the London docks. They would bribe the watchmen to let them on board Game Ships, usually from the West Indies, and stole sugar. They usually resealed the casks so that the crime would not be noticed straight away.
Liverpool kiss
Appears to be an earlier, English, version of the Glasgow kiss.
Lizzie Lousie
Policeman patrolling in a jam sandwich. The etymology of this term is vague to say the least.
Loa
Also known as the ‘invisibles’. The thousands of spirits in voodoo who mediate between human beings and Bondye (God). The first Christians to encounter voodoo misunderstood loa, and suspected that they were equivalent to the demons of their own religion. The best known of the loa is Baron Samedi.
LOB
Abbreviation sometimes written by police officers on transcripts of testimony that does not appear compelling in its truthfulness. Stands for Load Of Bollocks.
Lock in a sock
See Slock.
Long drop
Innovation in hanging made by William Marwood,, who worked in the UK 1874- 1883. He brought a degree of science to his craft, such that victims of hanging would either break their necks and die immediately, or else suffer a dislocation of vertebrae in the neck, with a resultant anaesthetic effect. Previous hangmen (Marwood preferred to call himself an ‘executioner’) had used a ‘short drop’, which left the victims dying in agony for some time.
Longrider
Wild West outlaw or bandit, so called because they spent a ot of time escaping on horseback from the law, perhaps in order to avoid a necktie party.
Look, The
Intimidating lack of facial expression used by enforcers for organised crime groups. They simple stare at a spot between the victim’s eyes until payment is received. Rumour has it that such gangsters as Johnny Rosselli (of the Outfit) and Lucky Luciano used to spend a lot of time staring into mirrors to perfect The Look.
Lot lizard
Sex workers or prostitutes who make a living in America’s huge truck-stops. Murder is said to be the leading cause of death for American sex workers. You can probably double or triple the risk when it comes to lot lizards.
Lugger
Beggar.
Lumper
Labourer in London who worked at unloading ships. There were so many stages to this process that there were multiple opportunities for theft, most of which seem to have been taken.
Lupe
She-wolves. The original Latin she-wolf was the one who suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. From that comes the term lupanars for brothels, apparently very dense in the region called Suburra. See also Fornication.
So good!
Wow! This is incredibly helpful for crime writers.