Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a homely woman, usu. used affectionately.

1583		P. Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses 92: Their pretie Mopsies and loouyng Bessies.
c.1655		‘The Merry Mans Resolution’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1880) 485: Farewel unto West-minster, and farewel to the Strand, / Where I had choice of Mopsies, even at my own command.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Mopsie a Dowdy, or Homely woman.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:10 10: These mix’d with Brewers, and their Mopsies, / Half dead with timpanies and Dropsies.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Mopsey, a dowdy, or homely woman.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 56: mopsey A short dowdy woman.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 22 Dec. 1/1: This mud-colored Mopsy and her half-caste babe were sent into the bush.
1965		(con. 1944) E.M. Nathanson Dirty Dozen (2002) 497: There’s a few old mopsies I can put you onto.
1968		M. Reynolds Year’s Best SF II (1969) 160: He wondered briefly how you went about getting a mopsy up to your quarters in a hostelry as posh as New Carlton.
1997		Share Slanguage.