Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who greases, such as a worker who greases working parts in a machine.
  • noun Slang A tough young man, especially one from a white working-class background who is much involved with motorcycles or cars.
  • noun Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a person of Latin, especially Latin American or Italian, descent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who or that which greases, as the person who oils or lubricates machinery, engines, etc.
  • noun A native Mexican or native Spanish American: originally applied contemptuously by Americans in the south western United States to the Mexicans.
  • noun The ruddy duck, Erismatura rubida.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who, or that which, greases; specifically, a person employed to lubricate the working parts of machinery, engines, carriages, etc.
  • noun Low, U. S. A nickname sometimes applied in contempt to a Mexican or other Latin-American of the lowest type; -- derogatory and offensive.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Someone or something that greases (applies grease).
  • noun slang A mechanic.
  • noun slang A biker, a tough.
  • noun US, offensive, ethnic slur A Latin American, especially a Mexican.
  • noun US, offensive, ethnic slur An Italian.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Mexican descent

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

grease +‎ -er. Applied to mechanics because they frequently become greasy during the course of their work. Applied to toughs because they frequently greased their hair; applied, like "greaseball", to Italians for the same reason. Applied to Mexicans because, at the time the phrase originated, they commonly worked greasing the axles of carts.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word greaser.

Examples

  • A few years later, when I was at a dance at a local YMCA and some guys started hassling me, one of the former committee members, a so-called greaser, intervened, telling the others to leave me alone because I was “okay.”

    Living History Hillary Rodham Clinton 2003

  • A few years later, when I was at a dance at a local YMCA and some guys started hassling me, one of the former committee members, a so-called greaser, intervened, telling the others to leave me alone because I was “okay.”

    Living History Hillary Rodham Clinton 2003

  • I told him to bluff and threaten; Cardigan, I knew, would realize the grudge the Black Minorca has against him, and for that reason I figured the greaser was the only man who could bluff him.

    The Valley of the Giants 1918

  • 'The Denim Gang' in Sportswear International #227 is an editorial shot by Ryan Kelly and styled by John Tan that recalls the greaser culture of the 1950s.

    TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends 2009

  • With his early "greaser" style, Elvis fit the bill, and Phillips recorded him on his now-iconic Sun label.

    John W. Whitehead: Elvis Presley: Down Lonely Street at the Heartbreak Hotel John W. Whitehead 2011

  • With his early "greaser" style, Elvis fit the bill, and Phillips recorded him on his now-iconic Sun label.

    John W. Whitehead: Elvis Presley: Down Lonely Street at the Heartbreak Hotel John W. Whitehead 2011

  • I don't feel the need to only associate with other 'greaser', 'psycho', or 'punk rock' types, and there's a reason for that.

    hamletwildie Diary Entry hamletwildie 2004

  • For that reason a number of their "greaser" assistants were taken to the car before noon and the hydrogen cask was loaded on the small wagon and carefully freighted to the corral.

    The Air Ship Boys : Or, the Quest of the Aztec Treasure

  • Every little "greaser" on the ranch adored the Señorita, and she was godmother to half the babies born on the place.

    Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party Edyth Ellerbeck Read 1924

  • Marcus would have killed him; had thrown his knife at him in the true, uncanny "greaser" style.

    McTeague 1920

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "No one need be afraid of the Rolling Stones any more. They couldn't change a thing. They didn't want to change a thing. They arrived at the head of the pop wave, expressing the vague discontent of their generation. They were rewarded with money and initiated into the fancy vices of the upper class: drugs, buggery, cruelty and vicarious violence. Home videos of the Aberfan disaster with 'Yes sir, that's my baby' for a backing. Loving, gentle, co-operative, my arse. Still, it was genuine. The greasers, the rockers, the mods, the skinheads, the hippies, the yippies, all of your genuine working-class youth would have been corrupted in the same way. Only the bourgeois revolutionary can spurn the insidious rewards this society offers to successful subversion. Only the middle-class rebel yearns for the proletariat."

    - 'Mozic And The Revolution', Germaine Greer in Oz, 1969.

    March 27, 2008

  • Thanks, WeirdNet.

    March 28, 2008