Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. Ling. Fr./Polari, also fogel) a silk handkerchief; thus draw a fogle v., to steal a silk handkerchief.

1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1824		J. Wight Mornings in Bow St. 179: [A] sturdy, curly- headed, red-faced, knowing-looking fellow, in topp’d boots, bird’s-eye fogle, and poodle benjamin.
1833		‘Poll Tomkinson’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 14: A fogle vun day Bill Gubbins had grabbed, / From a gemman’s cly, and so he got nabbed.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 29 Jan. n.p.: Both sporting orange ‘fogles’.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 64: A spicy tile, and nobby head of hair. / And round his squeeze, which seemed formed for a rope, / He flash’d a birdseye fogle.
1854		Goulburn Herald (NSW) 29 July 4/4: ‘He’s a pal of mine; so just drop that fogle’.
1857		‘Leary Man’ in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 42: Your fogle you must flashly tie, / Each word must patter flashery, / And hit cove’s head to smashery, / To be a Leary Man.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 151/2: A flash white-and-red handkerchief, or ‘fogle,’ as the costermongers call it.
1877		‘Larry Cafooslem’ in Laughing Songster 159: Round my neck a fogle yellow.
1879		Manaro Mercury (NSW) 1 Nov. 1/5: He was what we called a buzz bloke, and used to do anything mean — go for fogels and rope yokels in for sharpers.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 4: Fogle - Handkerchief.
1885		Sporting Times 17 Oct. 5/5: The Brickbat promised them each a silk fogle.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 30: Fogle, a silk kerchief.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 3: Busy fingers had Bendigo’s mother as she tied the handsome new fogle, or handerkerchief, dexterously round his neck.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 292/1: fogle a handkerchief or neckerchief (usually silk).

2. a silk handkerchief used as a fighter’s colour in a prizefight, thus sport one’s fogle, to display one’s colours prior to a fight.

1831		Satirist (London) 8 May 35/2: They came to the scratch, and swore never to yield, / Heigho! for Johnny / And as they came into the Parliament field, / They sported their fogles, and most of them peeled.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Sept. 4/2: Sambo being short of rhino, and having no ostensible backers to bear him to ‘the battle field,’ or provide him with ‘fogles,’ consented to accept £5 from Mr. Humphreys.