Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. impoverished; thus as n. an impoverished individual.

[1724		‘John Sheppard’s Last Epistle’ in Dly Jrnl (London) 16 Nov. 1: My Dudds are grown wond’rous Seedy; / Pray send me some Peck and some Bub].
1797		‘T.B. Junr’ Pettyfogger Dramatized II i: Dash it, I don’t know. I begin to be damn’d seedy.
1822		Egan Life and Adventures of Samuel Hayward 105: Driven from the patrician subscription gaming-rooms, he was content to push in among the seedy coves and risk his half bull at chicken-hazard.
1833		H. Smith Gale Middleton 1 149: The seedy had never a thimble in his garret, and never a sneezer in his sack.
1841		Sydney Herald 26 Oct. 2/4: Mr Rennie gave an immense number of examples of similar slang [...] sticks, for ‘household furniture;’ seedy, for ‘poor;’ spliced, for ‘married’.
1875		J.H. Warren Crying Shame of NY 303: [of a lottery drawing] [A]lmost every condition in life, from the man of wealth, anxious to increase it by chance, to the poor, forlorn, seedy purchaser .
1882		Eve. Bulletin (Maysville, KY) 6 June 4/1: ‘My dear boy, I’ve been there,’ said the seedy party, as he lit the stump of a cigar.
1898		St Paul Globe (MN) 19 Dec. 5/4: The seedy man [...] went around, according to his custom, putting down small bets.
1910		Dly Missoulian (MT) 27 Mar. 24/1: You may find John Gould loafing on every corner [...] He is seedy, penniless.
1913		Day Book (Chicago) 24 July 17/2: There he stood, a seedy, weedy-looking individual.
1944		R.L. Bellem ‘Murder’s Mouthpiece’ Hollywood Detective Aug. 🌐 You don’t look so seedy, kitten. That’s a nifty set of threads you’re wearing.

2. infected with a venereal disease.

1834

‘The Amorous, Flash Young Gentleman’ in Flare-Up Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 293: Until at last he got too much, / From one that was quite seedy, / He was obliged to apply, / To famous Dr Eady.

3. (Aus. / US campus) rowdy, noisy; drunk.

1849		Yale Battery Feb. in Hall (1856) 408: A seedy Soph beneath a tree.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 9 June 2/5: Two hours afterwards he was observed in a superlative degree of seediness.
1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 408: seedy. [...] rowdy, riotous, turbulent.