Green’s Dictionary of Slang

goy adj.

gentile.

1886		Sporting Times 10 Apr. 3/2: I hates all the shlenter tokkefum, / As togs up and tries to look goy.
1886		Sporting Times 27 Mar. 2/5: Its better to be a Goyisher curate than a Yiddisher scribbler.
1890		‘Morris the Mohel’ ‘Houndsditch Day By Day’ in Sporting Times 11 Jan. 3: A Goyisher nussmaid a callin’ me all sorts o’ insultin’ things.
1900		Sporting Times 13 Jan. 1/3: Nine out of every ten Yids take Goyisher names!
1919		F. Hurst ‘Heads’ in Humoresque 205: A goy play-actor!
1926		(con. 1900s) J.B. Booth ‘Master’ and Men 296: What gave the show away was a Jew dog killing a Goyisher cat.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 90: A Jewish fellow of about forty elected to work with us [...] He seemed to feel very much out of place among his ‘goy’ fellow-workers.
1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 140: My ticher calls id Xmas, bod de kids call id Chriszmas. Id’s a goyish holiday anyways.
1959		M. Richler Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 182: The whole house was permeated with goy-smell. Bacon grease.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 42: Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes – goyish. Black cherry soda’s very Jewish, Macaroons are very Jewish – very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime jello is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won’t go near them.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 232: Wilson and Spaulding, so goyish.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 231: I’ll be your unannounced goy son-in-law.
1982		W. Wharton Midnight Clear 132: Looks real goyish to me.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 293: I am like Jesus your goy saviour.
1996		H. Roth From Bondage 315: I don’t care if it’s a white dress or a pink dress. It’s a goyish wedding.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 99: Moviemaking, once a highbrow craft associated with the creative goyishe genius of Tennessee Williams, Nabakov, Dali, and Faulkner.
2003		J. Ellroy ‘Stephanie’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 67: He’d kick my goy ass off his porch.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 30: The rabbi calls Liz [Taylor] ‘overprivileged traph’ [i.e. treyf, lit. a non-kosher item of food] and the ‘poisonous fruit of the goyishe tree’.