Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also bid) any woman, esp. an Irish female servant; thus as a term of address.

1600		Shakespeare Twelfth Night III iv: Ay, Biddy, come with me.
[1611		Davies of Hereford Scourge of Folly 83: Iella, why frown’st thou: say (sweet Biddies-nie)].
1637		R. Brome Eng. Moor I iii: Come, biddy, come away.
1699		T. Dilke Lover’s Luck n.p.: Let me snuggle between my little Biddy’s Bubbies.
1770		D. Gunston (ed.) Jemmy Twitcher’s Jests 18: Unfortunately for poor Biddy, an unlucky stone lay in her way, and [...] she fell down with the bottle.
c.1790		‘Luke Caffrey’s Ghost’ Chap Book Songs 4: You know One-ey’d Bid of de alley; / De heffer was mine on de lay.
1835		‘Thomas Brown’ Fudge Family in England 1: The famous Miss Fudge—that delectable Biddy.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 28 May n.p.: The biddies and slewers assemble [...] in anxious expectation.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 22 Nov. 3/2: Whatever tenderness poor Biddy was in the habit of exciting outside, ’twas plain she had no sympathy iwith their Worships.
1849		Sam Sly 13 Jan. 1/2: he rather small- mouthed, turn-up nosed, and cleverish looking girl [...] is Irish Biddy.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 78: ‘Me misse’s name, is it?’ [...] replied the Biddy, with a low, cunning leer.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 479/2: As soon as Pat or Biddy is big enough to carry a basket [...] he or she must do something ‘to help’.
1870		B. Harte Luck of Roaring Camp (1873) 251: I have heard fragments of an entertaining style of dialogue usually known as ‘chaffing,’ which has just taken place between Biddy in No. 9 and the butcher who brings the dinner.
1882		Harvard Crimson 14 Jan. 🌐 The inevitable Biddy, with all her old-world ignorance thick about her.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 6/2: But what objection can the Bishop’s lady have to a servant’s religion? Would a bed made by a Catholic Biddy inoculate with dangerous Scarlet Lady ideas, or would a bed brushed by a Wesleyan girl contaminate?
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 252: On the way I saw more of Ireland in a dear old Biddy than I did in Dublin.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 20 Mar. 2/5: Langton was espied letting in some half-dozen ‘Biddies’.
1904		B.L. Farjeon Amblers 295: Wouldn’t the Biddies have you at any price?
1908		E. Dyson ‘Two Battlers and a Bear’ in Lone Hand (Sydney) Sept. 549/1: ‘Have I come down t’ be parlormaid ’n’n kitchen Biddy to er sleepin’ beauty with er tub on him like er walrus?’.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 18: If I leave it around here, the biddy’ll get hold of it, and then God help us.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 26: biddy.–A woman or girl, usually the latter, and originated by the tramps who found that most of the cooks or serving women at the houses where they were fed were Irish, and as like as not ‘Bridget,’ or ‘Biddy,’ by name.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 821: A large woman wearing a blue gingham apron [...] Must be a drunken biddy, Lonigan decided.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 170: We had a pair of biddies go after each other here.
1953		J. Thompson Criminal (1993) 82: The poor old biddy actually twitched her butt at me.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 338: They had no use for Paddy the navvy and Biddy the skivvy.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 343: They were two old fools to be sitting there weeping over him, like village biddies themselves.
1972		Nova Apr. 28: From frizzy Aquarians perfumed with weed, to demure biddies.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 190: Chatting away like a couple of old biddies.
1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Middle-aged biddie called Frances.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 233: Those biddies are too hard up for champagne.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 51: The idea of every biddy in the estate rubbernecking dismayed him.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 62: [A] queue of old biddies waiting at the bus stop.
2018		G. Gilmore Class Act [ebook] Who did this old biddy think she was?
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 50: An old biddy called the house ‘a hotbed of libertine behavior’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 109: ‘I’m sorry to keep going on. Silly old biddy’.

2. a young woman, thus biddy patrol, wandering the streets looking to pick up girls.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1832		in Egan Bk of Sports 146: I’m up to all your knowing rigs, / Ye biddies queer and flash.
1833		‘A Chaunt by Slapped-up Kate and Dubber Daff’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 46: I’ve buss’d and been nutty on fifty young biddies, / And ring’d them as oft as you see.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 21 Sept. n.p.: ‘Jake Bruel’s biddy keep a sticken her elbows clean inter my ribs’ .
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 11 Oct. n.p.: Mickey M—y is on the biddy patrol yet.
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 9 Aug. 13: Biddie — Same as bantam.
1982		W. Safire What’s The Good Word? 84: He is from Planet Lovetron where the brothers be bad and the ‘biddies’ be brickhouses.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 biddies Definition: the girls you be pimpin’. Example: I knocked up five biddies last night.

3. (US) an old woman, usu. irritating, interfering; usu. as old biddy.

1833		‘The Female Tunnel’ in Funny Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 49: An old maid, Biddy Nevercome, who lived somewhere near Rotherhithe.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 15 Mar. 3/1: [of either gender] Some of these gossipping old Biddies will be hauled over the coals.
1944		C. Himes ‘All God’s Chillun Got Pride’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 23: Why you – you, why go to hell, you beat-up biddy!
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 69: Silly old biddy, babbling about chastity and virginity, pleading with her not to go off at the deep end!
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 190: An elderly Irish biddy [...] was being ejected by the bartender.
1964		‘Charles Barrett’ Address: Kings Cross 79: The very thought of [...] being bossed about by the dried-up biddies who make offices their temporal and spiritual home did not appeal.
1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 70: Don’t make any dramatic gestures to those biddies.
1971		N. Smith Gumshoe (1998) 84: She was one of those old biddies you see in the Wine Lodge, drinking to the memory of the girls who fell here during the war.
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 101: It wasn’t until half an hour later that we saw the first encounter between our monster and one of the old biddies.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 104: My old biddy act calmed him down.
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Homesick’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] That old biddy from the council’ll be here any minute.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 36: Three old biddies from Georgia getting into a catfight about boyfriends.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 2: I’ll give you a little piece of advice – when you get around an old biddy like me, you just want to save that grin.
1997		D. Farson Never a Normal Man 125: One of my photographs of two cheerful sailors flirting with a drunken old biddy.
1999		Guardian Rev. 18 Sept. 12: This eccentric old biddy managed to run rings round MI6.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 99: He’ll regale us with his tales of smashing up old biddies’ houses for a bit of a crack on a Saturday night.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 59: Only one ahl biddy workin in there.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 242: [I]n the end that she was the cracked Irish biddy who lived in the middle bedsit on the middle floor.

4. (US) a policeman.

1902

C.L. Cullen More Ex-Tank Tales 97: The man [...] had a hold on my arm that felt like that of a badged biddy of the Broadway squad. [Ibid.] 103: The biddy on the corner impaled me with his gray Milesian eye.

5. (US) the female breast.

1969

in Gung Ho All-Amer. Comics n.p.: And cleanliness is a pair of big biddies.

6. attrib. use of sense 3 .

1987

R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 38: Twelvetrees pretended she wasn’t even standing there, her old biddy-bosom practically leaning on his neck.