Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) a lesbian.

1929		M. Lief Hangover 235: ‘Certainly,’ responded the Les, ‘where is she?’ [OED].
1936		‘Hectic Harlem’ in N.Y. Amsterdam News 8 Feb. sect. 2: LEZ. – A lesbian.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 146: I did’nt see why there should be a law against queers and lezes.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 214: Miss Madison wasn’t a straight les [...] She turned out to be one of these bisexual bitches.
1968		J. Colebrook Cross of Lassitude 155: Beppo is a ‘bull-dagger,’ a ‘low dyke,’ a ‘lady-lover,’ a ‘Les-wolf,’ and a ‘double-barreled broad’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 125: lesbian [...] les; les-be-friends; [...] lesbo; lesby; les girls [...] Leslie [-Anne]; lessie; [...] lezbo; lez; lezzy.
1972		New Yorker 15 July 64: The News broadened its views on the subject only to the extent of offering its readers a larger selection of sobriquets: ‘Fairies, nancies, swishes, fags, lezzes’.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 78: Anyway, he collars this les.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 132: Les and les girls and Iezzie and Liz and Lesbo and Leslie and so on.
1999		Guardian G2 27 July 17: She has a whiff of les about her.
2000		Eminem ‘Criminal’ 🎵 My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge / That’ll stab you in the head whether you’re a fag or lez.