Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US, also tingy) pertaining to the black community, or a black person; cite 1849 refers to Chinese [cite 1831 may also suggest SE tinge, i.e. of blackness].

1800		W.H. Murray Obi; or, Three-Fingered Jack I ii: Pray, where did you learn to forget the difference between black and white, my dingy spark?
1807		H. Tufts Autobiog. (1930) 292: Dingy cove signifies a negro man.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 198: The little dingy maiden intimated that the sweetbread was ready to be eaten.
1827		P. Cunningham New South Wales II 20: It is amusing to see the consequential swagger of some of these dingy dandies, as they pace lordly up our streets.
1831		‘Gallery of 140 Comicalities’ Bell’s Life in London 24 June 2/3: There’s nothing like Jamaica Rum, / To warm your ‘dingy’ frame, Old Blackee.
1831		Satirist (London) 13 Nov. 251/1: My tingy friend, Mahomed, he of the baths and shampooing notoriety.
1836		M. Scott Cruise of the Midge II 169: A deuced buxom-looking dingy dame.
1841		Sun. Flash 17 Oct. n.p.: A stunted black waiter of about three feet high [...] one of the ugliest specimens of dingy humanity that Amanda had ever beheld.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Sept. 4/2: ‘Sambo, of woolly nob,’ said he, ‘be pleased to stow your chaff, / I know whoever wins to-day may claim a right to laugh; / Once, as all present are aware, I prov’d your dingy mottle, / And, unless reason good there is, to-day your hash I’ll settle’.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Oct. Sept. 3/1: Mr. Redman did thc attentive for Michael, and Mr. Roberts took off his hat for the dingy strangers.
1854		F. St. Clair Six Days in the Metropolis 74: A swarthy, sloppy, dingy yet good-natured negress.
1885		L. Emanuel Jottings [...] of a Bengal ‘qui hye’ 14: [of Bengali servants] Our dingy and not over-industrious friends, Peeroo, Meero, or Azim Khàn .
1927		‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana I 88: A TALL negro, of some heft, registered with a brown gal at a dingy hotel in the Bottoms of Kansas City.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 325: Ya goddamned dingy bastard [...] ya black son-of-a-bitch.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 63: dingy [...] 1. Negroid ‘Why don’t you do your hair dingy – you know, with those cute little pickaninny top curls?’ 2. feeling horny enough for a black man, said of whites who are not usually erotically inclined towards blacks.