Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. non-committal, reticent, wary.

1893		in Standard [DA].
1896		H. Blossom Checkers 50: This sort of sobered Arthur up, and for a while he played ’em ‘cagey.’.
1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 139: He tries to bet me a forty. But I suddenly grow cagey.
1916		J. Lait ‘The Septagon’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 15: [She] profaned under her breath those too busy or too stingy or too lazy or too cagey to cross her palm with silver.
1927		D. Hammett ‘$106,000 Blood Money’ Story Omnibus (1966) 341: You act as if you were neither my friend nor his — as if you didn’t trust either of us. We’ll be cagey of you.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 102: Valeska was too cagey, and besides she smelled a little too strong.
1940		Wodehouse Eggs, Beans & Crumpets ((1951)) 12: ‘The customers [i.e. readers] have become cagey. They know too much’.
1942		R. Chandler High Window 99: With people like Passmore and apartment houses like that one, it pays to be a little on the cagey side.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 141: They looked puzzled, cagy.
1956		S. Selvon Lonely Londoners 61: When he see you right away he would start to get on cagey, on the lookout.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 47: He plays it very cagey.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 33: [They] are extremely cagey in some respects.
1983		(con. 1940s) D. Nobbs Second From Last in the Sack Race 52: I saw me dad on top of me mam doing summat that weren’t strangling [...] and when I asked mam she were right cagey about it.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 83: His mates are generally too cagey tae test oot this proposition.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 192: First he’s cagey, turnin about in case sound is carryin.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say.’ She’d gone a bit cagey, but he kept at it anyway.

2. cunning, crafty.

1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 8: He’s squintin’ at me foxy out of them shifty eyes of his, cagy and suspicious.
1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 83–4: The hunters so often and so easily and so cheaply get them, with their quick money, their influence and their cagey technique.
1938		R. Chandler ‘Red Wind’ in Red Wind (1946) 59: A woman’s idea of being cagey.
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 41: Number one parked on the other side of the street and acted kind of cagey.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 237: He was a cagey conniver who knew tricks even Tom didn’t know about stealing elections.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 144: The cagey thing for Kipper and me to do now is to nip along and get into some dry things.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 123: They were the cagey faces you see outside stadiums touting black market tickets from the side of the mouth.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 29: She’s senile but cagey.
1987		(con. 1920s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 39: These ladies of the trading fraternity were as cagey as monkeys and would slip a couple of damaged tomatoes or bananas into the bag with the dexterity of a conjuror.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 215: I didn’t see him do this, but it was an even money bet he would, so I played it cagey.
2006		P. Shannon Davey Darling 229: The cagey old bugger took himself off for a few drinks.