Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. neat, smart.

1865		B. Harte Poems (1871) 103: Here comes Rosey’s new turn-out! Smart! You bet your life ’twas that! Nifty! (short for magnificat) [DA].
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 334: He was always nifty himself, and so you can bet his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch.
1889		K. Munroe Golden Days of ’49 181: Nifty! Pard, just chalk it on your slate that it’s going to be nifty, and high-toned, and run in a bang-up hotel style.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 88: He’s a nifty-lookin’ savage.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 5: That blue dress was a pretty nifty affair.
1913		Day Book (Chicago) 25 Jan. 12: [picture caption] One of the Real Nifty Spring Hats.
1920		T. Thursday ‘Mr. Mister’ in All-Story Weekly 22 May 🌐 Tell Hennesey to rig you out in a nifty business suit.
1920		Truth (Brisbane) 9 May 6/3: [A]n assortment of clothing which makes all the nifty Creighen-street girls wild with envy.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 23: Roville [...] is a fairly nifty spot.
1931		W.N. Burns One-Way Ride 244: In his nifty golf togs he looked as if he might have stepped off amagazine cover.
1947		J. Symons Man Called Jones (1949) 7: As our American friends say, a pretty nifty joint.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 94: Its rear dining room is the ritziest in town with El Morocco pretensions and inflation prices; its cocktail lounge attracts the niftiest nifties.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 26/1: A fence-post made for a nifty equaliser.

2. (orig. US) clever, skilful, agile.

1902		Ade Girl Proposition 164: Lutie was just about as Nifty as the Next One.
1914		‘Hugh McHugh’ You Should Worry cap. 1: It seemed to me that a hundred iron men in advance was a nifty little price for two lessons.
1916		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 32: The son was Ned Navarre, the nifty faro dealer who could do more things with a deck of wrong cards than Herman the Great could do with a plug hat.
1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 279: Nifty work, what?
1938		D. Runyon ‘A Job for the Macarone’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 696: She is a right nifty little swimmer.
1942		W.R. Burnett Quick Brown Fox 145: ‘The Colonel don’t think much of me; thinks I’m nuts. But he thinks you’re pretty nifty’.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 15: He came up with a nifty idea.
1981		A. Payne ‘You Need Hands’ Minder [TV script] 49: Do a nifty tyre change, do they?
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 73: Those nifty new disposable cuffs the cops had started using.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 9 Jan. 26: Executing a pretty nifty throw.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 23 Jan. 1: A nifty face-lift.

3. (US) cheeky, insolent, disrespectful of authority.

1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Two Ways of Going Out After the Pay Envelope’ in True Bills 100: This Humble Pie doesn’t seem to agree with me, [...] I shall cut out the Apologetic and try being Nifty.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 251: Nifty. Too familiar.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 159: Cathcart had a nifty wardrobe – someone had been trying on his threads or this was the real Duke – Kathy’s slob.

4. attractive, pretty.

1911		‘Sing Sing No. 57,700’ My View on Books in N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Apr. 5/2: When Knighthood Was in Flower [...] | flossie piece of work about a bunch of queens. The main fairy is a nifty bunch of skirts.
1919		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 22 Mar. [synd. col.] She is a nifty looking show girl.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 510: The nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century.
1928		R. Carr Rampant Age 109: Gee, she’s a nifty little bitch.
1939		P. Cheyney Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 49: As well as bein’ a nifty looker she has got what it takes in brains.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 103: Nifty Neddy was a handsome man, tall and well built.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 150: She is a somewhat nifty specimen of her age.
1977		P. Hamill Flesh and Blood (1978) 151: You should look nifty in it, big boy.
1982		J. Sullivan ‘No Greater Love’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Hindus do not go about in peek-a-boo bras and nifty knickers!
1996		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 6: nifty – socially approved, attractive: ‘Wow! That’s a nifty pair of shorts’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 195: Talent hunt for nifty child actress to play [...] a ‘busty preadolescent’.

5. amusing.

1916		‘A-No. 1’ Snare of the Road 14: This would provide nifty dope on which to base a lecture, sir.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 7: A nifty yarn to tell the guys.

6. enjoyable, admirable.

1917		S. Lewis Job 252: ‘[W]e have some pretty nifty parties, lemme tell you, with plenty poker and hard liquor’.
1950		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 7 Jan. 18/1: All of which makes Billy Rowe think it will be nifty in ’fifty for everyone on either side of the footlights.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 809: nifty – Desirable; excellent.
1981		(con. 1963) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 147: Isn’t this a nifty way to spend your second night in college?
1986		S. King It (1987) 136: Some of the nifty new drugs.
1997		T. Fontana ‘God's Chillin’ Oz ser. 1 ep. 3 [TV script] ‘I’ve been reading a lot about faiths since I got here and yours is pretty nifty’ ‘Catholicism is nifty?’.

7. self-satisfied.

1953

S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 46: He strutted at the track [...] nifty and supercilious toward his competitors.