Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a girl or young woman.

c.1572		Valenger ‘Cuckolds Kallender’ Arundel MS I 219: A barren Doo whoe striketh free maye well a forde the keepers fee.
1592		Shakespeare Titus Andronicus II i: Single you thither, then, this dainty doe.
1609–11		T. Heywood Golden Age III i: Here stands one ready that must strike a doe. And thou art she.
1611		L. Barry Ram-Alley III i: I goe, To hunt no Buck, but prick a lusty Doe. [Ibid.] IV i: Old men they can be fine, with a small doe.
1614		N. Breton I Would and Would not I in Grosart (1879) 7/1: To know my Game, and closely in the darke, To lay a barren-Doe vpon the ground.
1639		Ford Lady’s Trial II i: ‘My duck, or doe,’ said I.
1640		Fletcher Night-Walker I i: Such a dainty Doe.
1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 41 7–14 Mar. 327: A Coney Hunter going lately a ferreting in the Coney Berry of St. Gyles, by chance met with a two-legg’d Doe.
1676		‘In January Last’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 45: Ize said to her, my Doe, / May I not dight your Apron fine, kiss your bonny brow.
1682		A. Radcliffe ‘The Ramble’ in Works (1696) 86: I rouz’d my Doe, and lac’d her Gown.
1697		‘Cupids Post Boy’ in Lansdowne 852.233 n.p.: He marks out his Doe, which she draws within Shot.
c.1707		‘The Bee-Hive’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 307: Such power hath my tripping Doe, my little pretty Bunny / That many would their Lives forego, to play but with her C--ny.
1732		Progress of a Rake 4: A Brace of Does, well fleshed and in Season.
1740		‘The Cullies Invitation’ Hop Garland 3: There is your dainty Does, / with their rising Bubbies.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 25: No silken Girl has Thighs like thine, / No Doe more buxom is than mine.
1820		‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ in Fancy 16: I’m still starvations’s daughter: / Victuals here, and victuals here, / Make me quite a sly doe.
1845		late 17C ballad q. in Sporting World 19 Apr. 50/1: I depend on my Doe, / Who, a garden-stuff draper, trulls out on the cadge.
1860		J.G. Holland Miss Gilbert’s Career (1870) 150: ‘Mr. Arthur Blague,’ said old Ruggles [...] ‘this is Mr. Dan Buck, of New York.’ ‘Plague, how are you? How’s your ma’am?’ ‘Buck, how are you? How’s your doe?’.

2. a prostitute.

1702		T. Brown ‘Letters from Dead to Living’ in Works (1760) II 259: Thirty pair of haunches, both bucks and does, have been wagging their scuts at one another.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 53: Why does the Cully sacrifice his Nose, / And spoil his Voice t’oblige the willing Does?
1748–49		Cleland Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 10: Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be seen or talk’d to by any, either of her customers, or her Does, (as they call’d the girls provided for them).

3. (US Und.) a baby.

1904

‘Number 1500’ Life In Sing Sing 247: Doe. An infant.

4. (US tramp) a bartender [? they can be imposed on by a vagrant].

1915

Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 13 June 19/1: Doe — Bartender.

5. a woman.

1972

J. Wambaugh Blue Knight 277: Laila was sprawled half on top of me, a big smooth naked doe.

6. (US black) a gullible person, a fool, a potential victim.

1961

C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 46: In Harlem idiom a square is a lain, a doe, a John, a mark – in other parlance a fool.

7. (US) an unaccompanied young woman.

1960, 1975

Wentworth & Flexner DAS 153/1: doe At a dance, party, or gathering, a woman unaccompanied by a male escort.