Green’s Dictionary of Slang

saucy, impudent.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1915		Van Loan ‘The Extra Man’ in Buck Parvin 21: Look at our banty rooster crow.
1928		Blind lemon Jefferson ‘Lemon’s Worried Blues’ 🎵 Lord what makes that banty rooster, he keeps crowin’ for the dawn of day.
1933		S. Walker Night Club Era 107: [A]n exasperated police sergeant called him [Owney Madden] ‘that little banty rooster out of hell,’ and he always had about him some of that alert and truculent cockiness.
1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 147: A banty Italian, grinning out of self-consciousness.
1985		F. Deford in Sports Illus. June 🌐 He was just a little guy, maybe 5'9", a banty rooster, but one time he went over to the Dodger dugout and yelled, ‘All right, you so-and-sos, I’ll fight you one at a time or in groups of five’ .
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 187: Had she been more like that little banty red rooster, had she been a real go-getter ... Well – it was all but over now.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 155: Arms a flying like a little banty rooster, bringing down the house.
2004		T. Winton ‘Abbreviation’ in Turning (2005) 18: Uncle Ernie was a ginger banty-rooster of a bloke.