Question 1

What does “pull” mean?

Accepted Answer

To pull someone means to successfully draw their romantic or sexual interest — to get them to want you, whether that ends in a phone number, a night together, or a relationship. As a noun, someone who 'has pull' or 'can pull' is naturally good at attracting people; it describes magnetism more than effort. The word can also carry an older, harder edge in Black street vernacular, where to pull someone meant to recruit or draw them into your orbit — most notably in pimp and hustler talk, where a man 'pulled' a woman away from another man or into his own stable.

Question 2

Where does “pull” come from?

Accepted Answer

Mainstream dictionaries file the dating sense of 'pull' as British club slang from the mid-20th century, but that account leaves out a parallel and in some cases earlier Black American thread. Green's Dictionary of Slang separately tags a cluster of 'US black' senses of pull tied to street and pimp vernacular — luring a woman away from another man, or a pimp enlisting a new prostitute — usage that runs alongside, not descended from, the British pub sense. The related phrase 'pull someone's coat,' meaning to draw attention or clue someone in, was documented as Black vernacular in Mezz Mezzrow's