a. A man who is fancied; a sweetheart. b. pl. = The fancy (see FANCY sb. 11 b). c. slang. A man who lives upon the earnings of a prostitute.
a. 1835. Marryat, Jac. Faithf., xliii. One day the sergeant was the fancy man, and the next day it was Tom.
1847–78. Halliwell, s.v. Fancy, A sweetheart is still called a fancy-man.
b. 1847–8. H. Miller, First Impr., xiv. (1857), 247. Pop, pop!—they [pistols] went off beautifully, and sent their bullets through an inch board; and so in all probability I would have succeeded in astonishing the ‘fancy-men.’
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Courage, x. 213. In every school there are certain fighting boys; in every society, the contradicting men; in every town, bravoes and bullies, better or worse dressed, fancy-men, patrons of the cock-pit and the ring.
c. 1821. P. Egan, Tom & Jerry, 42. Although One of the FANCY, he was not a fancy-man.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 178. The women of the town buy of me, when it gets late, for themselves and their fancy men.
1890. The Spectator, 6 Dec., 825/2. They will bear from the ‘fancy-man’ any usage, however brutal; and that, if he kills them, they will, for his sake, invent lies on their dying beds to prevent justice from being done.
