Forms: 8–9 fogey, fogie, 9 fogy, Sc. foggie. [Possibly a subst. use of FOGGY a. in sense 3, fat, bloated, or in sense 2, moss-grown. Cf. FOGGIE and FOGRAM.]
1. Sc. An invalid or garrison soldier.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Fogey, old fogey, a nick name for an invalid soldier.
1808. in Jamieson.
1867. in Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.
2. (Orig. Sc.) A disrespectful appellation for a man advanced in life; esp. one with antiquated notions, an old-fashioned fellow, one ‘behind the times.’ Usually preceded by old.
1780. J. Mayne, Siller Gun, I. (1808), 117.
| Foggies the zig-zag followers led, | |
| But scarce had pow’r | |
| To keep some, fitter for their bed, | |
| Frae stoit’ring owr. |
1790. Scots Songs, II. 56.
| Now ilka lad has got a lass, | |
| Save yon auld doited fogie, | |
| And ta’en a fling upon the grass, | |
| As they do in Stra’bogie. |
1821. Galt, Ayrsh. Legatees, 217. They’re just a whin auld fogies that Mr. Andrew describes, an’ no wurth a single woman’s pains.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xxxvii. The honest rosy old fogies.
1857. Kingsley, Two Y. Ago (1877), 262. Jesting at him about ‘his old fogies’ at the Linnæan Society; clapping her hands in ecstasy when he answered that they were not old fogies at all, but the most charming set of men in England.
transf. 1862. Shirley, Nugæ Crit., xi. 483. The classic ‘old fogies’ on my shelves began to look very dingy to me.
3. U.S. colloq. [Cf. sense 1.] (See quot.)
1881. Hamersley, Naval Encycl., Fogy, an increase of pay due to length of service.
4. attrib. use of sb. passing into adj.
1887. T. A. Trollope, What I remember, I. ii. 51. It used to be said, and is still said by some old world folks, that the use of slang is vulgar. And the younger generation, which uses it universally, ridicules much the old fogey narrowness which so considers it. But the truth is, that there was in the older time nothing really vulgar in the use of the slang which then prevailed. Why should not every class and every profession have its own shibboleths and its own phrases?
1892. Daily News, 8 June, 2/3. With a smile which the old fogiest of curmudgeons could not resist.
