Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (mainly Aus.) a prostitute; thus flossiedom n., the world of prostitution; flossery, flossie-shop, a brothel.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Feb. 11/3: He was walking one evening down a rather quiet street ornamented here and there by policemen, when a damsel, whose flaring red blouse and general air of Flossiedom proclaimed her occupation, plaintively besought him to let her trot down the street with him, because the ‘bobbies’ had a ‘down’ on her.
1903		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Oct. 8/1: [heading] Bilking Barmaids, Fusil-Fakers and Flossies.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Oct. 33/2: Melbourne police put in a lot of hard graft running the frail but persistent Flossie and her ‘employer’ out of Lonsdale-street, with the result that the temples of Venus were temporarily handed over to Ah Fat, the cabinet-maker, and Fatta Chand, the hawkers’ supplier.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Oct. 1/1: Having arrived fuddled at an East Perth Flossery thay paid for small pommery.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Oct. 1/1: He will taboo any person under the rank of a Flossie-shop landlord.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Sept. 11/2: By a sad mischance, the police got to work at the same time on what Judkins would call Launceston’s Social Evil, and proceeded to break up the happy home of the most notorious Flossie.
1924		E.G. Murphy ‘The Confession’ Dryblower’s Verses 48: She counted the minutes he’d hang on to life / And fumed at the Flossies and Fuzzies.
1932		‘R. Scully’ Scarlet Pansy 136: I don’t have to be bought like a flossy dame in a fancy house.
1953		R. Mais Hills were Joyful Together (1966) 224: He could risk it, go to Hanover Street ... sleep with a whore ... he wouldn’t mind sleeping with one of the younger flossies.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.

2. (also floss) an overdressed, over-affectionate woman.

1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Food Influence’ Sporting Times 27 Jan. 1/4: A wink wandered ever her optics so sweet, / Making Flossies’s fair features look fairer.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Oct. 4/7: I’ve never had a frisky Floss / To glad me with her giddy eye.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Libelled Ladies’ Sporting Times 20 June 1/3: Don’t forget your Flossie wants her best of boys!
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Father Who Jumped In’ in Ade’s Fables 84: One day Bernice was a Little Girl, and the next she was head Flossie among the Debutantes, with a pack of Society Hounds pursuing in Pull Cry, each willing to help count the Bank Roll.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of What Transpires’ in Ade’s Fables 140: She had no absolute Proof that he had carried on with a Front Row Floss in New Haven.

3. a barmaid.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 June 13/2: [T]he ingenious youth surprised the tavern barmaids by his invariable custom of asking for ‘a glass of English ale.’ ‘What other sort do you think we keep, old chappie?’ was Flossie’s usual response.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Feb. 1/1: The masher member for of the Hebrew Club has a keen eye for shicksers [...] any Flossie he ‘freezes’ is mesmerised into leaving home and mother.
1934		Central Qld Herald (Rockhampton, Qld) 26 July 12/3: So we wet our whistles again and this flossie behind the bar said to me [etc.].

4. a girlfriend, esp. one who is older than her partner.

1912		Mansfield (OH) News 7 Dec. 10(?)/3: They said that sister must not say ‘fudge’ – not even when there was nobody but guineas around – because ‘fudge’ wasn’t a proper dido to find in the flossie’s vocabulary.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 294: Get some inside Dope from those who have caught the Flossies at short range.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 361: Say, Studs, I’ll bet some flossie’s got you.