Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a woman; thus fro file n., a female pickpocket.

1605		Marston Dutch Curtezan I i: A soft plumpe, round cheekt froe.
1636		T. Heywood ‘The Fashions’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 26: The Italian in his High Chippin, / Scotch Lass, and comely Fro too.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 182: Juno, my curs’d Frow, / Has turn’d the Girl into a Cow.
1689–91		‘The Henpeckt Cuckold’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 432: Let him that Widdow wooes, or courts a Maid to his Froe, / Take her down in her Wedding-Shooes: Else ’tis but a Word and a Blow.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: froe c. for Urowe, (Dutch) a Wife, Mistress, or Whore. Brush to your Froe, (or Bloss,) and wheedle for Crap, c. whip to your Mistress and speak her fair to give, or lend you some Money.
a.1704		N. Ward ‘The Dutch-Guards Farewel to England’ in Writings (1704) 142: Our Frows and our Skildren were happily Settled.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:1 22: Dutch Fro’s in Numbers have I cur’d.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 206: Froe, a wife, mistress, or whore. Brush to your froe (or bloss) and wheedle for crap, i.e., whip your mistress, and speak her fair to give or lend you some money.
1722		‘Whipping-Tom’ Foppish Mode of Taking Snuff I 10: The Butcher’s Froe in blue Apron, is always clogging her Nose with as much Filth, as her Husband does Infection into Veal.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 9: There came by a Company of Fro Files.
1729		Life of Thomas Neaves 31: Those Buttocking Frows, that for a Lie buxum, a Hog, or half a Slat, this is six-pence, a Shilling, or half a Crown, shall turn up their Scut to every Porter, Link-boy, Tinker, or Carman.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1741		Ordinary of Newgate Account of the Malefactors executed at Tyburn 18th March 1740 Pt II 6: Their Business that Evening was to go upon Cheving the Froe, (that is, Cutting off Women’s Pockets).
1747		Life and Character of Moll King 12: My Blos has nailed me of mine [handkerchief]; but I shall catch her at Maddox’s Gin-Ken [...] and if she has morric’d it, Knocks and Socks, Thumps and Pumps, shall attend the Froe-File Buttocking B---h.
1754		G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: As I derick’d along to doss on my kin / Young Molly the fro-file I touted, / She’d nail’d a rum codger of tilter and nab, / But in filing his tatler was routed.
1765		H. Howard Choice Spirits Museum 44: Ye Froes of the Strand, and ye Molls near the Fleet.
c.1780		Entire New List of All the Sporting Ladies [broadsheet] A bonny parcel of Lilly-white Frows.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 135: Scamp the ballad-singing kid, / Call’d me his darling frow.
c.1792		R. Porson ‘Imitation of Horace’ in Whibley In Cap and Gown (1889) 67: What! Is it she? The filthy frow!
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 182: The lads began to hang their nobs, and tip their frows the velvet.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1833		‘The Beak & Trap to Roost are Gone’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 48: All’s gloom where’er we bend; Your glim except, that shows some frow / Has just brought home a friend.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1893		‘Bob Sterling’ Town-Bull 29: ‘Fro! [...] to-night we must get all the fun we can out of each other’.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 385: Is she here [...] The Clipman frow?

2. a prostitute.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 43: The Frow is with Kid; the Whore is with Child.
1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 36: Ye brimstones of Drury and Exeter-street / Ye frows of the town, and ye molls of the Fleet.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 14: Frow – a prostitute.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 90: Dutch Frow Christine, who said, – He cannot stand it, and I cannot stand it [...] he shall churn all night, but the butter will not come, and he bends de churn-staff.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Frow a prostitute who keeps a cully.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 616: Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air Youth here has End by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows come from.