Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) whisky.

1835		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 12 Dec. 2: Glass after glass of the critter went down their throats [HDAS].
1840		Mississippi Free Trade and Natchez Gazette 12 Mar. V p.1 in A.P. Hudson Humor of the Old Deep South (1936) n.p.: We recommend small and delicate juleps [...] with but little of the live critter in them.
1856		M. Griffith Autobiog. of a Female Slave 138: Dis ar’ nigger, if you pleases, sar, would like to hab a leetle drap ob de critter dat you promise to him.
1863		‘Edmund Kirke’ My Southern Friends 49: I never keeps none but th’ clar juice, th’ raal, genuwine critter.
1871		W. Still Underground Railroad 542: How about the ‘critter?’ do you take a little sometimes? [HDAS].
1885		C.A. Siringo Texas Cow Boy (1950) 70: Jack being an Irishman, couldn’t resist the temptation of taking a ‘wee drop of the critter’ every fifteen or twenty minutes.
1928		Ruppenthal Collection n.p.: He had a drop of the critter on him [DARE].

2. (N.Z. prison) a sex offender, usu. a paedophile [the offender is equated with an animal or monster].

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 49/1: critter n. a sex offender, applied particularly to paedophiles.

3. (US campus) an attactive female.

2014

C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 Fall 2: CRITTER — adorable and cuddly female.