[Ads-l] to croak

[Laurence Horn]

Yes, I was about to cite these from croak, v. tr. (5b); hard to tell
without further data whether Jon's example = "two soldiers croaked" 'died'
or = "two soldiers (were) croaked" 'killed'.

5.b.
1823–
transitive
<https://www.oed.com/information/understanding-entries/glossary-grammatical-terms/#transitive>.
To kill; to murder; to hang. dialect or slang.

   1. 1823

   *Croaked*, hanged. A flash term among keepers of prisons, who, speaking
   of a thief that was executed, observe, ‘He was *croaked*.’

   P. Egan, Grose's Classical Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue (revised
edition) [image:
   Citation details for P. Egan, Grose's Classical Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue]
   2. 1848

   *Croak*, to murder.

   Ladies' Repository vol. VIII. 316/1[image: Citation details for Ladies'
   Repository]
   3. 1877

   *Crooak*,..N. and E., to kill.

   F. Ross et al., A Glossary of Words Used in Holderness in the
   East-Riding of Yorkshire[image: Citation details for F. Ross, A Glossary
   of Words Used in Holderness in the East-Riding of Yorkshire]
   4. 1910

   ‘I never done it!’ he gasped. ‘I never hurt nobody. Who's been croaked?’

   E. A. Walcott, Open Door vii. 83[image: Citation details for E. A.
   Walcott, Open Door]


On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 12:59 PM Jonathan Lighter <
00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> In theory. But the other fits the grammatical pattern (with "were"
> suppressed in headlinese), and indeed two soldiers were croaked.
>
> And the usage does go back more than fifty years before 1876.
>
> The croaker, BTW, was Wild Bill Hickock.
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 12:08 PM Ben Zimmer
> <00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Couldn't "croaked" simply be intransitive here?
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 9:14 AM Jonathan Lighter <
> > 00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > 'To kill.'
> > >
> > > OED/HDAS have this in English criminal lingo from 1819, and U.S.
> > > likewise from 1847 but this is an interesting general ex. ex. from the
> > > American West:
> > >
> > > 1876 _St. Louis Weekly Globe-Democrat_ (Aug. 25) 2 [Newspapers.com] :
> > > HOW HE KILLED JOE TUTT...SAM STRAWHAN SHOT DEAD...BILL MULVEY'S TURN
> > > TO DIE...TWO SOLDIERS CROAKED.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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