What shall I do? / My poor old dug-out is napoo.1918 April, 'R', An elegy on my dugout, when it was done in, published in Four Whistles by D Company of the Scottish Officer Cadet Battalion, quoted in Graham Seal, The Soldiers' Press: Trench Journals in the First World War 2013 →ISBN
“[…] It seems scrounging for fuel ’ad reached such a pitch in the village […] But our washing ’ad to be done, ’an I thought if I got the whole of this football team scrounging they might find something as everyone else ’ad overlooked.[…]” / “‘Very well,’ says I, ‘San fairy ann. Napoo washing—napoo ball.’[…]”1920 March 10, “Won on the Posts. (With the British Army in France.)”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume CLVIII, London: […] Bradbury, Agnew & Co., […], →OCLC, page 185, column 1:
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One afternoon the corps was due to shift, so that morning the cook said to the Turco, giving him his farewell tin: 'Oh la, la, Johnny, napoo pozzy tomorrow.'1929 November, Robert Graves, chapter XVII, in Good-bye to All That: An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 237:
The war was napoo, fini, and the Rhine the end of the journey.1964, Pierre van Paassen, To Number Our Days, page 159:
‘Hey, Bill, where′s Charles?’ / ‘Napoo.’ / ‘What?’ / ‘Yes. He was out on a listening post and lit a cigarette. Sniper got him.’1918, Hereward Carrington, Psychical Phenomena and the War, page 69:
napoo
verb
Etymology World War I British and ANZAC army slang, probably a corruption of French “il n′y a plus” (“there is no more”).
“The general says that if you are wise you will leave before the cannons come. Otherwise you′ll get ‘napooed,’ ” and he made an expressive gesture. “Compris?”1918, Roland Pertwee, The Little Landscape: Everybody′s Magazine, volume 38, page 35:
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I thought a man was lucky if he did not get napooed first trip in.1918, Hereward Carrington, Psychical Phenomena and the War, page 68:
1984, John Masters, Man of War, 1984, US title High Command, page 230, “No,” Merton said shortly. “We sit tight, they find us. If we both go wandering about looking for each other in the middle of the night, we′ll start a battle and the whole plan for tomorrow will be napooed.”
German planes had not only carried out a raid behind our lines, but a long-range shell had actually hit one of the Battalion cookers and “napooed” it completely.1988, Sidney Rogerson, Twelve days, page 19:
napoo
intj
Etymology World War I British and ANZAC army slang, probably a corruption of French “il n′y a plus” (“there is no more”).
“[…]Finish! Napoo!” and he spread his hands expressively, holding the cup upside down with the cloth hanging out of it, before he went on: “But it hasn't come to that yet.[…]”1939, Ruthven Todd, Over the Mountain, published 1978, page 216: