Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. foolish; thus n. windy, a fool.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Windy-fellow, without Sense or Reason.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 74: He told us he was in for a trivial windy Matter, which he valued not.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1742		‘Hercules Vinegar’ The Cudgel or Crab-tree Lecture 28: The windy Lines may his admirers charm, And cause ’em [...] to commend The tuneful Nonsense.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1787		Burns Briggs of Ayr in Works (1842) 69/1: Conceited gowk! puff’d up wi’ windy pride!
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1839		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers Works III (1898) 369: Is it poatry, or sheer windy humbug, that [...] won’t bear the commanest test of comman sence?
1842		‘The Rubber; or Matt’s Last Game’ Littell Clay Minstrel (1844) 350: Humbug Benton [...] Came forth in many a windy speech; for he felt some ambition, / Like his great prototype, to show an ass’s sad condition!
1869		Sportsman (London) 16 Dec. 2/1: Notes on News [...] He is spoken of in one [NYC] newspaper as ‘an addlepated swindlebug,’ and in another is addressed thus:—‘Good bye, old windy; good bye, old gaspipe; go home and soak your head’.

2. conceited, boastful[prior use is SE].

1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Nov. n.p.: [A]n argument with a windy little loafer called Jim Harrington.
1853		Woodville Republican (MS) 2 Feb. 1/2: Dat am de spunky nigger, / Dat had dem windy fights, / Wheneber he’s contending / For his own ‘Suddern Rights’.
1861		Freemount Dly Jrnl 20 May 4/3: Wigfall was blustering away in his usual windy style.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America II 304: Not by windy verbiage, not by vehement demagogism.
1883		‘Mark Twain’ Life on the Mississippi (1914) 369: Traces of its inflated language and other windy humbuggeries survive along with it.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 20 July 3/3: Why should any windy elf / Try to make them part to bookies when they want to play their pelf?
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1898		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 13 Feb. 3/3: Smith [...] is a great talker — in fact he is half-brother to the famous ‘Windy Man of Guildford’.
1900		L.A. Daily Times 22 Jan. 🌐 The jawsmiths took possession of a dirt wagon, from which they harangued the crowd, or such part of the gathering as would listen to their windy palaver.
1906		N.Z. Truth 1 Sept. 7/3: [heading]Wily, wordy, windy ‘Wilson Wilson’ is in Melbourne.
a.1910		‘Texas Ranger’s Lament’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 56: Those big alligators, the state legislators, / Are puffing and blowing two-thirds of their time; / But windy orations about rangers and rations / Never put in our pockets one-tenth of a dime.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 353: Decorations, titles. Want to make you windy with authority. Honors! If you get ’em, you become pompous.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 177: A man who told long-winded yarns and expected his listeners to believe them was apt to receive the sobriquet of ‘Windy.’.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 12 June [synd. col.] One of those windy bores was [...] stifling some of us last night.
1946		P. Larkin letter 16 Oct. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 128: Pardon a somewhat windy letter.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 243: She’s in quod. Some girl she’d done got windy and spilled the beans.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 84: With him we’re gonna build tough! Not windy tough, real tough!
1975		(con. 1900s) G. Swarthout Shootist 121: Well, I may be windy, but I’m not contrary!
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 169: I could see a windy monologue coming on.
1994		(con. 1982) G. Byrne Pictures in my Head 106: When I was a windy boy and a bit.
2003		N. Green Angel of Montague Street (2004) 118: Blanche tell you what a windy old coot I was?