Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Ling. Fr./Polari) to look at; esp. in imper., e.g. varda the riah! look at that hair!; thus varda d’amour n., a loving look; bona vardering adj., good-looking.

1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 114: VARDO, to look.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 50/1: It’s too hot for people to stop and varder – that means, see. [Ibid.] 139/2: ‘Vada the glaze’ is – Look at the window.
1864		Western Dly Press 24 Oct. 4/3: Such expressions as these—‘fake the cly,’ ‘rumbo cully,’ ‘nante denali,’ ‘varda my nibs,’ &c, have some means got out of their proper channel, and have been appropriated by third-rate actors.
1871, 1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1881		Newcastle Courant 16 Sept. 6/5: Vardo, the grabs are leerie, don’t wait for darkmans but melt.
1890		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 5 July 7/2: I vardered the ancient party.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 11: I could vardy that when I heard them joggering.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 92: Vardo, to observe or look; as ‘vardo the cove;’ look at him.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 10/2: You capture the first liker at him in a snug artful fox at some chantin ken where there’s a bona varderin serio comic, and Isle of Francer engaged. – From Biography of the Staff Bundle Courier, the gentleman who accompanies ‘seriocomics’ from music-hall to music-hall when ‘doing turns.’.
1952		K. Williams Diaries 17 Nov. 82: Varda The Bonar etc. Nicht so schön.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society Appendix 3 167: Verda, look.
1967		Took & Feldman Round the Horne 22 May [BBC radio] She’ll vada me and smile, / I’ll understand and in a little while / She’ll hold my German band, / And though it seems absurd [etc.].
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 69: She occasionally clocked me vardering her like an ogre with a hard-on.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 139: The Homosexual Society has some egregious errors: verda should be varda (Parlyaree for ‘see’ or ‘observe’), though Partridge gets it wrong, too (vardo), adding that ‘low Cockneys’ pronounce it ‘vardy,’ which is not so. (It is from Romany varter = watch).
1997		Indep. on Sun. 9 Mar. n.p.: He vardied the cell. Saw the paper figures for the first time [BS].
2002		Juha ‘Polari’ 🎵 on Polari [album] Beach in the screech. Alamo jo! / This dizzy hoofer gonna dowry jeebo. / Varda me fatcha, meshigner bona. / Savvy you gettin fericadooza.
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 64: Polari words like [...] omi palone (an effeminate man), nantee (nothing), and vada (to look) appeared in wider gay slang.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 299/1: vada, varda, vardo, vardy, varder to look.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 18: Some of the diners vada one another with up- and down-turned oysters.