Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Ling. Fr./Polari) the face.

1895		Mirror of Life 27 July 14/2: And with an ecaf green as grass / He told the time of day.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society Appendix 3, 167: Ecaf, face.
1966		Took & Feldman ‘Bona Prods’ Round the Horne 16 Apr. [BBC radio] She vadas his sleeping eek, and she pulls out this pair of scissors and lops off his riah.
c.1970		(ref. to 1950s) in Gay News n.p.: We would zhoosh [‘fix’] our riahs [‘hair’], powder our eeks [‘faces’], climb into our bona [‘nice’] new drag [‘clothes’], don our batts [‘shoes’] and troll off [‘cruise’] to some bona bijou [‘nice, small’] bar.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 72: ecaf (Brit gay sl fr backward sl, new word formed by reversing an existing word’s letters) the face.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 139: Camp gays use it [i.e. varda] in expressions such as ‘How jolly to varda your eek,’ eek, being really backslang ecaf = face.
1991		(ref. to 1930s) in Porter & Weeks Between the Acts 138: Face is ecaf. Well that’s just face backwards.
1999		M. Coward in Verbatim 24:2 n.p.: The Jules and Sand sketches often begin with some variation on the salutation ‘How bona to vada your dolly old eek again,’ meaning ‘How good to see your nice old face again’.
2001		J. Burkardt ‘Back Sl.’ Wordplay 🌐 ecaf: face.
2003		(ref. to 1960s) Baker & Stanley Hello Sailor! 99: Shipmates might talk to each other in Polari about who was fanciable: their dolly eek (pretty face), bona riah (nice hair), fabulosa ogles (fantastic eyes) and shapely lallies (legs).
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 59: Backslang is a language form that writes or pronounces words backwards, for example, ecaf (face), riah (hair), say (yes), yob/yobbo (boy).
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 292/1: ecaf, eek, eke a face.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 17: novak wears full-eek pancake, innumerable beauty morsos.