Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(mainly juv.) one’s father; thus pa-in-law, father-in-law.

1818		‘Thomas Brown’ Fudge Family in Paris Letter I 9: Entre nous, too, a Papist — how lib’ral of Pa!
1839		C.J. Lever Harry Lorrequer 17: There were no young ladies to refresh Pa’s memory.
1841		Punch 24 July I 17: Dear Pa, I nose yew will be angxious to ear how I got on sins i left the wing of the best of feathers.
1856		Huddersfield Chron. (Yorks.) 28 June 3/5: John, when his pa’s in his coffin, / Comes into three-hundred a year.
1865		‘Artemus Ward’ Among the Mormons in Complete Works 1865) (1922) 254: Good heavens forbid you should ever be the Pa of any of these innocent ones.
1879		Atlanta Constitution 22 Mar. 2/3: If his pa had married Mrs Oliver, Don Cameron would have been King of the South.
1887		W.S. Gilbert ‘The Sailor Boy to his Lass’ Fifty ‘Bab’ Ballads 219: But, ah, Matilda! / It did annoy your sailor boy / To find it was your pa, Matilda.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 5: Is your pa a nice, kind man, little girl?
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘A Tempered Wind’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 168: Pa is pursuing them with the plow mules and the buckboard.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 154: Well Al he did not say Hello pa or nothing like that because he is not only one month old.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 132: When Pa’s red Unmentionables with the Glass Buttons became too Intimate and Itchy, they were chopped down for Ulysses or Grover.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 107: ‘Tea, pa!’ said Charlotte.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 698: I want to [...] tell my ma and pa that Harold is fine.
1945		J.T. Adams Mountain Murder 24: I was out looking for Pa [...] He ain’t been home since yesterday, and Ma’s in a fit.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 195: I had to plead at court [...] cause he was my pa and I had no mother.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 38: Pa wasn’t working for the Housing Authority, only for Mike as a kind of substitute helper.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 205: The thought of his forthcoming journey to Wisconsin, back to Pa.
1983		A-Team Storybook 59: They had your Pa with them, Nathan.