turn tricks

present singular third person turns tricks · participle present turning tricks · participle past turned tricks · past turned tricks

1. intransitiveslangTo work as a prostitute, providing sexual services for money.

   […] two sisters we always see at the club have started turning tricks to pay for heroin.

   2010, Jennifer Egan, “Ask Me if I Care”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad

   2 more examples

   By 1996, she was a hooker sleeping in the streets or at ratty hotels in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, turning tricks to get her next bag of heroin.

   2004 March 21, Kevin Fagan, “The Homeless: Desperate search for Bridget—sister, mother, addict”, in San Francisco Chronicle, archived from the original on 14 Sep 2004

   They were turning tricks, doing drugs, and generally little better off than they had been before, except that they were keeping more of their money. But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.

   2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, page 307

   Synonyms: sell one's body, turn a trick