Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a donkey.

1714–15		‘Riding Mare’ in Jacobite Melodies (1825) 49: Then hey the ass, the dainty ass / [...] / And mony ane will get a bite / Or cuddy gangs awa .
1812		W. Tennant Anster Fair III xlvii 68: Stark terrour frighted out / Each ass’s soul from his partic’lar skin [...] thro’ the loan they saw the cuddies awkward / Bustling some straight, some thwart.
1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 5: I put the poney in a small hut, which we had formerly built for a cuddie.
1826		Cumberland Pacquet 12 Dec. 4/4: I sing the pitmen’s plagues and cares / [...] / On cock fight, dog fight, cuddy race / Or on a soap-tail’d grunters chase, / They’ll risk the last remaining doit.
1861		Launceston Examiner (Tas.) 24 Oct. 2/1: I thought you told me you cuddy would eat nothing but nettles and thistles.
1865		Queanbeyan Age 9 Mar. 4/4: All kinds of rough and riotous jollity on Sundays. ‘Cuddy’ or donkey races were held in the open.
1875		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 18 Sept. 368: ‘Bring out yer cuddies for the cuddy-race!’ — cuddy being the oppressive provincialism for the much-enduring ass.
1889		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 28 Aug. 5/3: A donkey boy [...] described his ‘cuddy’ as ‘two lovely black eyes, oh what a surprise’.
1896		R.L. Stevenson Weir of Hermiston 287: cuddy, donkey.
1903		Western Mail (Perth) 31 Oct. 22/4: The cuddy, dear boy, is the most intelligent of animals because it has the greatest brayin’ power!!
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:3 156: ‘Donkey! Donkey!! DONKEY!!!’ – and his voice rose to a shout, / While the cuddy’s little ears quickly lengthened out.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 69: It would be a shame what he would do to these bush cuddies.
1940		Advocate (Burnie, Tas.) 8 Apr. 8/2: Ridin’ about the backblocks on a three pound ten cuddy.

2. a fool.

1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 24-31 Mar. n.p.: Her Guardian Cuddy Matchwell her Ciscibeo Jacky Dandy.
1845		T. Hood ‘Miss Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg’ in Poems (1846) 142: To exhibit a six-legged calf / To a boothful of country Cuddies .
1865		Sth London Press 30 Dec. 14/3: ‘Come, march, tramp — off with you, cuddy’’.

3. (US) a slave.

1899

Record-Union (Sacramento, CA) 12 Nov. 8/3: Cuddy (a dolt, ass) applied to slaves, who are used like asses.

4. (Aus./Irish) a (small) horse.

1897		Worker (Brisbane) 4 Sept. 8/3: [He] knocks about the whole year long around his drought-struck isle, / Across a wiry ‘cuddy’ whom he calls his ‘crocodile’.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 June 14/1: Start him slowly for a quarter or half-a-mile, in a good season, and he’ll take you three miles or so, even though well-mounted, but bustle him at first, and any ordinary cuddy can catch him.
1906		A. McCormick Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway 279: The wrestle between the grandfather and the present Gordons [...] was caused by Billy’s cuddies eating the corn from the kiln.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘The Oracle’ in Three Elephant Power 12: They’s only a lot o’ cuddies, any ’ow.
1919		Barrier Miner (Broken Hills, NSW) 1 Mar. 9/6: I am sad to think they may get my old cuddy. Their way with horses is not ours.
1936		Western Mail (Perth) 17 Dec. 2/5: A crock [...] is a worn out horse not even fit to canter much less gallop. A ‘Cuddie’ may perhaps be a little better.
1944		Truth (Sydney) 13 Feb. 4/3: One of the chief cat-whippers in Melbourne today must be Scobie Breasley [...] Breasley saw Kintore donkey-lick a field of youngsters in the Federal Stakes, and had salt rubbed into his wound when the Lewis cuddy Valour curled the mo in the Bond Handicap.
1939		Sydney Morn. Herald 29 Aug. 13/6: Annie’s offsider put it about that Cuddy was a brumby.
1966		P. Boyle At Night All Cats Are Grey 154: She’s a well set up wee cuddy, all right.

5. (Irish) a young woman.

1966

P. Boyle At Night All Cats are Grey 60: A hedgehog wouldn’t be safe with Tailor around and there’s bloody few quills on Scroggy’s young cuddy of a wife.