Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pertaining to Chinese people or culture.

1830		N. Ames Mariner’s Sketches 88: The loss of the tail, or cue, is an indelible disgrace to an inhabitant of the Celestial Empire.
1840		Jeffersonian Republican (PA) 29 Feb. 4/1: If there ere celestial nation, Jim / Should keep up this ere miff / [...] / Vot a hawful time there’ll be.
1854		Soulé, Gihon & Nisbet Annals of S.F. 385: Most of their [Chinese] national customs and doings are as little agreeable to white people as those horrible sounds which make the ‘celestial’ harmony.
c.1860		in ‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home (1872) 396: We ate chow-chow with chop-sticks in the celestial restaurants.
1861		Bell’s Life in Sydney 1June 3/1: European diggers [...] are compelled ‘to cut like winking,’ in order to prevent their ‘thread of life’ being cut by celestial tomahawks.
1878		F.H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 237: A Celestial maiden named Sing Loy passed in her checks.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Apr. 14/4: In a southern town, for instance, we find that Sergeant Blank, as a cabinet-maker, is working up quite a good business connection, to the intense disgust of Ah Chip and Ah Chong, the Celestial carpenters opposite.
1888		Tuapeka Times (Otago) 13 June 3/4: I was informed by a Celestial resident.
1891		J.A. Riis How the Other Half Lives 98: A specimen of celestial logic.
1896		Thames Star (Waikato, NZ) 22 June 2/5: [healine] A Celestial Disturbance. There are two factions amongst the Chinamen of Parawai [...] The hill tribe, we understand, are jealous of the Celestials of the plains.
1898		F.W. Hume Hagar of the Pawn-Shop 71: When the third customer came to pawn an idol of sea-green jade Hagar learnt something concerning the Celestial Kingdom.
1904		Harrington & LeBrunn [perf. Vesta Tilley] I want to have a Chinese Honeymoon 🎵 Oh marry me Celestial Chinee, we’ll lead a happy life, I’m sure.
1910		N.Z. Truth 16 Mar. 7/3: Past dainty dinners, partaken in sublime ignorance of their having been prepared by ‘Celestial’ chefs.
1914		‘Bartimeus’ ‘A Committee of Supply’ Naval Occasions 78: The Celestial bandit who [...] starved or poisoned them.