Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a bruise, a bump.

1917		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 21 July [synd. col.] Policeman Delano [...] was approached by a Negro whose eye was fighting against comparative odds to become black. ‘Well, George [...] who gave you that nice little hickey?’.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 116: I got a patch over one eye and a hicky over the other.

2. (US) a pimple, a boil.

1918		DN V 25: Hickey n. A pimple on the face.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 116: You wake up one morning [...] you find a hicky on your cheek.
1935		E. Anderson Hungry Men 97: I wish I didn’t have these hickeys on my face.
1949		J.H. Burns Lucifer with a Book 143: A hundred girls in kimonos, gouging at their hickies or plucking winkers from their eyelids, glared at steaming bowls of cereal.
1956		H. Gold Man Who Was Not With It (1965) 158: Joy squeezed a blackhead on my chest [...] A woman is not just soul and hickie-squeezing, nor just a body.
1963		W.C. Anderson Penelope 39: I have a little hickey just above my right buttock.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

3. (orig. US) a love bite, usu. on the neck; also as vt (see cite 1970).

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 136: Hickey Redness of the skin caused by affectionate nibbling.
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 103: And at school next day [...] her friends noticed the hickey on her neck.
1970		‘Troy Conway’ Cunning Linguist (1973) 47: She was so hickeyed by the time I got her back to bed that her lusty, busty body was a furnace of passion.
1974		J. Lahr Hot to Trot 16: Rules of the Game – French kiss ... 1pt. Hickie ... 2.
1983		Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 5–26 Sept. We phoned Jerry and said I was Kerry (Ang’s best friend) and I asked him if he’d give me a hickey.
1985		J. Wambaugh Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 176: People warned [...] not to get your neck too close or you’d be sporting the world’s biggest hickey.
1992		Proper Dos ‘First Day of School’ 🎵 on Mexican Power [album] Had my jaina crease up my dickies, / Put a close hood on my neck, / So my other jaina wouldn’t see me hickies.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 157: Half the time she’s going around with Roy’s hickeys on her neck.
1999		Observer Screen 15 Aug. 4: The only blood sucking comes from over-zealous hickies.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 225: Taking a break from notching a hickey on his neck, she would cock an ear toward the stereo.
2003		Mad mag. Oct. 36: You wasn’t sayin’ nothin’ about me bein’ fat when you wuz givin’ me them hickeys.
2015		J. Stahl OG Dad 42: I have to warn you, she might show up with a hickey.
2023		J. Jackson Pineapple Street 186: Archie used to give his fiancée’s sister hickeys out by the gazebo .

4. (US) the penis.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 119: No broad would ever put a ring in your nose or lead you around by the hickey.