pansy n.
1. (US) an admirable person.
Alma Record (MI) 22 June 5/3: She’s a daisy — or a pansy — whom all admire. | ||
Fables in Sl. (1902) 63: A certain Preacher became wise to the fact that he was not making a Hit with his Congregation. The Parishioners did not seem inclined to seek him out after Services and tell him he was a Pansy. | ||
Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum XIV n.p.: Am I a turnip? [...] Why am I minus when it’s up to me To brace my Paris Pansy for glide? |
2. (also pansy-wansy, panz) an effeminate and/or homosexual man; also attrib [redup.; abbr.].
Sel. Letters (1972) 2 July 27: About the tent in which Brown and I sleep his nomen is ‘Pansy’. | in Dupee & Stade||
Aussie (France) XI Feb. 10/1: He had not lived in Aussie long enough to become Australianised. He had a round, rosy dial and a soft-speaking voice. We called him ‘Pansy’ from the jump. | ||
Hand-made Fables 63: For every Pansy in this Conservative Town there were 14 Rutabagas. | ||
Put on the Spot 17: Pour me a shoot—no, make it a man’s size—I ain’t no pansy. | ||
Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 6 Oct. 7/5: [headline] The pansy craze Is It Entertainment or Just Plain filth? | ||
Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 141: What the hell d’you think I am? [...] A bloody pansie? | ||
Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 58: They must have thrown a small light in his face and he passed out — just from panic. The pansy. | ||
They Die with Their Boots Clean 76: Oh, you pretty-pretty bunch o’ soppy-stalked shy pansy-wansies. | ||
Indiscreet Guide to Soho 67: I left them together baiting the wretched pansies. | ||
USA Confidential 45: The pansies in the State Department do not wear skirts over their striped pants. | ||
Riverslake 196: I’m about as popular as a pansy at a prostitutes picnic. | ||
Way of Life 35: She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘He’s nothing but a dirty little pansy.’. | ||
Syndicate (1998) 54: You expect me to believe that pansy was the brains in a half million dollar caper. | ||
One Day of the Year III i: ’E put on a voice like a bloody panz and ’e sez up high like, ‘Darl, ’ow ARE yer?’. | ||
‘Geoffrey Tolhurst’look at that suit, will you?’. | ||
Catching Up 126: If he’s not a pansy, then he’s queer in some way or other. | ||
Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 123: That little pansy must’ve really brainwashed mum. | ||
Dirty Laundry 145: Who’s the pansy? | ||
Glitter Dome (1982) 36: Whipdick Woofer’s sucking around Fuzznuts like a pilot fish. Police pansies is what I think. | ||
Limericks Down Under 75: A mile off you’d pick he’s a pansy. | ||
Homeboy 155: Only a Polack pansy could love this whammer. | ||
My Lives 107: I was a pansy after all panting over a real man’s body. | ||
Case of Exploding Mangoes (2009) 21: These pansies sleep on nine-inch thick mattresses. | ||
(con. 1960s) Bacon in Your Blood 44: Can’t we come in here for a quiet drink without some little pansy photographing us? | ||
Razorblade Tears 216: ‘Don’t tell me. The two pansies had a baby’. | ||
Man-Eating Typewriter 87: You’re disgusting! An effing poof! A pansy! |
3. (US black) a woman, one’s girlfriend.
Home to Harlem 30–1: Under the little colored lights, the dark dandies were loving up their pansies. |
4. a contemptible cowardly person.
Pulp Fiction (2006) 113: Those pansies tailed Mayo and me [...] top Hawthorne Street. | ‘Stag Party’ in Penzler||
Ceiling Zero Act III: Don’t worry about me. I’m no pansy. | ||
Port of Call 253: ‘By cripes, Jim, you’re a hard doer all right!’ ‘You’re no pansy, either, if it comes to it.’. | ||
Turning (2005) 186: You fuckin pansy! screamed Max. What’re you waiting for? | ‘Family’||
Life 50: Most of it was just taunts, ‘pansy’ and all that. | ||
(con. 1943) Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘What do you know about trouble, you fucken pansy’. |
In derivatives
effeminate, homosexual.
Anecdota Americana II 6: Our pansyfied friend turned petulantly on his colleague. | ||
Man Called Jones (1949) 49: Dick’s a pansyfied type. | ||
Taste of Honey 67: You prefer to stay in this hole with that pansified little freak? | ||
Homicide Blonde 102: She had giggled to herself at the time because he had seemed a bit pansified like, the way he had talked. | ||
1985 (1980) 118: ‘With his bloody ballet-dancing and his pansified pretty ways.’ ‘Homosexual?’ ‘He might well be for all I know’. | ||
Evidence 176: Now it became lispy, faggoty, pansified. ‘And if I have to sweet-talk a hustler, dearie, then that's exactly what I’ll do’. | ||
Prince Charming 47: I spoke with a la-di-da voice. I walked in a pansified way. | ||
Libertine 8: High-falut-in’ bloody arty-crafty types like him and his pansified friends. |
In compounds
see separate entries.
In phrases
of a man, to titivate oneself in an effeminate manner.
Spanish Blood (1946) 101: ‘Don’t pansy up on me,’ he snarled. | ‘Pearls Are a Nuisance’ in||
(ref. to 1930s) | Companion to Beckett 233: The slang term ‘to pansy up’ was still current in the 1930s; its contemporary British equivalent is ‘to tart up’.