Keister
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -iËstÉ™(r)
Origin
Origin uncertain. Originally attested as a criminal cant word for "burglar's tool-box" in 1881. In the XX century a clutch of criminal slang meanings are mentioned, including "safe, strongbox". "Tripe and keister" had been the phrase for a conman's or a pitchman's display case on a tripod.
Alternative forms
Full definition of keister
Noun
keister
(plural keisters)- (slang) The buttocks.
- (slang, dated) A safe, a strongbox.
- 1953, Richard S. Prather, Too many crooks, page 100― " ... The four hundred's yours to take a keister for me. Any cash you find in the box is yours."― "Four hundred, huh? Don't seem like much. Think there'd be anything in the keister?"
- (slang) A suitcase; a satchel.
- 1942, Billboard, 29 Aug 1942 — page 63Tripods, keister and loud talk don't make a pitchman any more than do fine feathers make fine birds.
- 1963, Grace Snyder, Nellie Irene Snyder Yost, No Time on My Hands, page 37Sometimes Mama was too busy to make the daily rounds of the draws and pockets, in which case she gave us the keister — an old leather satchel used, in its better days to carry the baby's "didies" in — and sent us to bring in the eggs.