keister

• keester, keyster, kiester

Origin uncertain. Originally attested as a criminal cant word for "burglar's tool-box" in 1881. In the 20th 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. A likely origin is the word Kiste, which means a box or case, in both German and Yiddish.

• Rhymes: -iːstə(r)

keister (plural keisters)

1. (slang) The anus or buttocks.
2. (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?"

3. (slang) A suitcase; a satchel.
   • 1942, Billboard, 29 Aug 1942 — page 63

     Tripods, 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 37

     Sometimes 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.

keister (third-person singular simple present keisters, present participle keistering, simple past and past participle keistered)

1. (slang) To conceal something in one's rectum

   Quick, keister this pot before the cops get here.

• kerites, kiester, strikee