Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a woman, spec. a prostitute.

1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia I i: What ogling there will be between thee and the blowens!
1725		J. Sheppard Sheppard in Egypt 21: Then to the Sable Spectre in Accents mild, / The Cause requests, who had his Arm beguil’d, / Bl-w-n in Transport crys W--d, W--d, W--d.
1760–1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Blowen. the Mistress of a Gentleman of the Scamp.
1788		‘The Irish Robber’s Adventure’ Irish Songster 3: My bloan she cries and tears her hair.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 134: his blowen, a female ballad-singer, now joins him.
1791		‘A Pickpocket’s Song’ in Confessions of Thomas Mount 20: I and my blowen to the gaff / Straightway did repair.
c.1800		Song No. 19 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: The Blowens all adozine [?] him and say he is the Pippin O.
1805		J. Davis Post Captain (1813) 76: ‘How is your first lieutenant? Does he drift as much as ever among the girls?’ [...] ‘I am done with blowings, sir [...] I am spliced’.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: blowen. A mistress or whore of a gentleman of the scamp. The blowen kidded the swell into a snoozing ken, and shook him of his dummee and thimble; the girl inveigled the gentleman into a brothel and robbed him of his pocket book and watch.
1824		J. Wight Mornings in Bow St. 30: [H]e was aware of the defendant John Bloomer [...] in company with two feminine persons, commonly called ‘ladies of easy virtue,’ by the polite — ‘blowens’ by the vulgar — and ‘courtezans’ by the classically fastidious.
1835		‘The Spring Bedstead’ in Knowing Chaunter 18: And the blowen so alert, / Had nibbled all my money.
1842		‘Sarah’s A Blowen’ in Nobby Songster 18: Young Sarah’s a blowen: / Vot does the thing neat; / She’s kept by a Gent, / Who hundreds has spent, / On Sarah the blowen.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 8 Jan. n.p.: We disovered that ‘Hoyle’s Book of Games was neither more nor less than ‘Advice to Blowens’.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 July 1/3: Marian Silver, a dashing blowen, charged a private knight of Lombardy named Smith with having illegally disposed of a gold ring which she had left as security for a bob he had advanced.
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 276: I went straight away to my blowen – that’s Pig-faced Polly, as she’s called.
1855		Yokel’s Preceptor 3: By private blowens, we mean those apparently modest women, who, notwithstanding their being blessed with honest, hard working husbands, do a little pleasant whoredom on the sly. Two ladies of this description reside in Back-hill, Clerkenwell; the house is situated at the corner of a gateway opposite Hatton Garden, and has a very convenient back door by which a gallant can make a safe exit, should the husband arrive unexpectedly.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 44/1: He had had a quarrel with his ‘blowen,’ and she was on the point of ‘turning him up’.
1870		Bury & Norwich Post (Suffolk) 1 Feb. 2/6: The stalwart, flaunting, audacious ‘blowen’ who holds a foolish ‘fast’ man [...] while her pal knocks him on the head and rifles his pockets.
1880		Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie III tab.V i: Did I insult the blowen?
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 10: Blowen, a thief’s girl or sweetheart.
1902		H. Baumann ‘Sl. Ditty’ Londinismen (2nd edn) vi: So from hartful young dodgers, / From waxy old codgers, / From the blowens we got / Soon to know wot is wot.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 154: They will have money in their pockets [...] and ‘fags’ between their lips, and maybe a Cockney blowen on their arm.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1973		R. Todasco Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Dirty Words.

2. as blowen of the ken, a landlady, a ‘mistress of the house’.

1791

‘Flash Lang.’ in Confessions of Thomas Mount 18: Mistress of the house, blowen of the ken.

3. (UK Und.) the pretended wife of a shoplifter or pickpocket.

1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: blowen. The pretended wife of a bully, or shop lifter.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1852		Launceston Examiner (Tas.) 24 Dec. 862/1: [Those] who affect to be ministers, and preach in the open air to collect crowds for the benefit of those whose ‘mawleys’ dip deep into the ‘cly’ or who ‘fake a blowens;’ and whether ‘magsmen,’ ‘buzgloaks,’ or ‘dummy-hunters’ give the ‘reglars to their ‘benculls’-pick pockets, and share the spoil with their confederates.

4. a mistress.

1830

Lytton Paul Clifford I 30: ‘I ’as heard as ’ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord!’ said Dummie.