tap, v.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang (original) (raw)

tap a house (v.)

to burgle a house.

tap a kidney (v.) (also squeeze...)

(US) to urinate.

tap the admiral (v.)[according to Hotten (1864), the practice originated when sailors sucked out the liquor from the barrel in which Admiral Horatio Nelson’s body had been preserved on the journey home after his death at the battle of Trafalgar, ‘to such an extent as to leave the gallant Admiral high and dry’]

to suck liquor through a straw from the ship’s barrel which has been bored with a gimlet.

tap up (v.)

(drugs) to tap a vein in order to make it stand out from the surrounding flesh preparatory to an injection of narcotics.

2000		N. Griffiths Grits 88: The few months off-a skag [...] geyv me poor fuckin veyns a rest. Now eyl tap up in no time.