Dandy

subs. (formerly slang, now recognized).—1.  A fop; a coxcomb; a man who pays excessive attention to dress. The feminine forms, ‘dandilly’ and ‘dandizette,’ did not ‘catch on.’ DANDY was first applied half in admiration, half in derision to a fop about the year 1816. John Bee (Slang Dictionary, 1823) says that Lord Petersham was the chief of these successors to the departed Macaronis, and gives, as their peculiarities, ‘French gait, lispings, wrinkled foreheads, killing king’s English, wearing immense plaited pantaloons, coat cut away, small waistcoat, cravat and chitterlings immense, hat small, hair frizzled and protruding.’ In common English DANDY has come to be applied to such as are neat and careful in dressing according to fashion. [From DANDY-PRATT (q.v.)]

  ENGLISH SYNONYMS.  Beau; blade; blood; buck; chappie; corinthian; count; court-card; cheese; daffy-down-dilly; dancing-master; dude; dundreary; exquisite; flasher; fop; gallant; gommy; gorger; Jemmy Jessamy; Johnny; lounger; macaroni; masher; mohawk; nerve; nicker; nizzie; nob; oatmeal; scourer; smart; spark; sweater; swell; toff; tip-topper; tumbler; yum-yun.

  FRENCH SYNONYMS.  Un gandin (popular = a frequenter of the old Boulevard de Gand); un gommeux; un mouchard; un mouget; un petit maître; un talon-rouge (from the red heels worn in the seventeenth century); un incroyable (a ‘swell’ of the Directoire period, as also un merveilleux); un mirliflore (an allusion to millefleurs, a favourite perfume); un muscadin; un élégant; un dandy; un lion; un fashionable; un cocodès; un crevé; un petit crevé; un col-cassé; un luisant; un poisseux; un boudiné; un pschutteux; un exhumé; un gratiné; un faucheur; un bécarre; un daim; un excellent bon; un fade; un fadard; un gilet en cœur; un muguet (properly lily of the valley. Cf., DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY).

  SPANISH SYNONYMS.  Don guindo; hopeo; pisaverde.

  1818.  CARLYLE, in Early Letters (Norton), vol. I., p. 158. When I walk along the streets, I see fair women …. and fops (DANDIES as they are called in current slang), shaped like an hour-glass—creatures whose life and death, as Crispin pithily observes, ‘I esteem of like importance, and decline to speak of either.’

  1821.  COMBE, Dr. Syntax, Wife, c. iv.

  1835.  HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. viii. Great DANDY was Mr. Bobbin; he looked just as if he had come out of the tailors’ hands.

  1847.  BULWER-LYTTON, Lucretia, pt. I., ch. i. What is now the DANDY was then [1880] the Buck.

  1866.  W. D. HOWELLS, Venetian Life, ch. xx. He is a DANDY, of course,—all Italians are DANDIES,—but his vanity is perfectly harmless, and his heart is not bad.

  1890.  LORD LAMINGTON, The Days of the Dandies [Title].

  2.  (thieves’).—A bad gold coin. [In allusion to its careful make and composition, this coin containing a certain proportion of pure gold.]

  1883.  GREENWOOD, Tag, Rag, & Co., ‘Planting the “Sours.”’ It is not in paltry pewter ‘sours’ with which the young woman has dealings, but in ‘DANDYS,’ which, rendered into intelligible English, means imitation gold coin—half-sovereigns and whole ones.

  3.  (Irish).—A ‘small whiskey.’

  1838.  Blackwood’s Magazine, May, ‘Father Tom and the Pope.’ ‘Dimidium cyathi vero apud Metropolitanos Hibernicos dicitur DANDY.’

  1883.  HAWLEY SMART, Hawkins, ch. vi. It’s beautiful punch—ah, well, as you’re so pressing, I’ll just take another DANDY.

  4.  (American).—Anything first-rate; a DAISY (q.v.). Also used adjectively.

  1888.  Superior Inter Ocean. Dr. H. Conner has invested in a fine piece of horseflesh. The animal was purchased in Oshkosh, and has a record of 3′37. It is said to be a DANDY.

  1888.  St. Louis Globe Democrat, 21 Jan. My box ain’t no good mister, but I know a feller over dere dat’s got de DANDY one.

  1888.  Missouri Republican, 2 Feb. I’m a terror from Philadelphia, and I can lick any man in the world. I’m a DANDY from away back; the farther back they come the DANDIER they are, and I come from the furthest back.

  THE DANDY, adv. phr. (common).—All right; ‘your sort’; ‘the ticket.’ Cf., DANDY, sense 4. A north-country song has the line, ‘The South Shields lasses are THE DANDY O!’

  1835.  HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxvi. I guess our great nation may be stumped to produce more eleganter liquor than this here. It’s THE DANDY, that’s a fact.

  1884.  Notes and Queries, 6 S., ix., p. 35. I not long since heard a carpenter whose saw did not cut, wanting, as he expressed it, ‘to be sharpn’d,’ and who took up another in better condition, say, ‘Ah! that’s THE DANDY.’