Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pansy n.

also pansie

1. (US) an admirable person.

[US]Alma Record (MI) 22 June 5/3: She’s a daisy — or a pansy — whom all admire.
[US]Ade 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.
[US]W. Irwin 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.].

[US]E.E. Cummings in Dupee & Stade Sel. Letters (1972) 2 July 27: About the tent in which Brown and I sleep his nomen is ‘Pansy’.
[Aus]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.
[US]Ade Hand-made Fables 63: For every Pansy in this Conservative Town there were 14 Rutabagas.
[US]J. Lait 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?
[UK]R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 141: What the hell d’you think I am? [...] A bloody pansie?
[US]R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 58: They must have thrown a small light in his face and he passed out — just from panic. The pansy.
[UK]G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 76: Oh, you pretty-pretty bunch o’ soppy-stalked shy pansy-wansies.
[UK]S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 67: I left them together baiting the wretched pansies.
[US]Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 45: The pansies in the State Department do not wear skirts over their striped pants.
[Aus]T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 196: I’m about as popular as a pansy at a prostitutes picnic.
[UK]P. Wildeblood Way of Life 35: She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘He’s nothing but a dirty little pansy.’.
[US]C. Cooper Jr Syndicate (1998) 54: You expect me to believe that pansy was the brains in a half million dollar caper.
[Aus]A. Seymour 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?’.
[UK]N. Armfelt Catching Up 126: If he’s not a pansy, then he’s queer in some way or other.
[Aus]B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 123: That little pansy must’ve really brainwashed mum.
[US]P. Hamill Dirty Laundry 145: Who’s the pansy?
[US]J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 36: Whipdick Woofer’s sucking around Fuzznuts like a pilot fish. Police pansies is what I think.
[Aus]Benjamin & Pearl Limericks Down Under 75: A mile off you’d pick he’s a pansy.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 155: Only a Polack pansy could love this whammer.
[US]E. White My Lives 107: I was a pansy after all panting over a real man’s body.
[UK]M. Hanif Case of Exploding Mangoes (2009) 21: These pansies sleep on nine-inch thick mattresses.
[UK](con. 1960s) M. Peppiatt Bacon in Your Blood 44: Can’t we come in here for a quiet drink without some little pansy photographing us?
[US]S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 216: ‘Don’t tell me. The two pansies had a baby’.
[UK]R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 87: You’re disgusting! An effing poof! A pansy!

3. (US black) a woman, one’s girlfriend.

[US]C. McKay Home to Harlem 30–1: Under the little colored lights, the dark dandies were loving up their pansies.

4. a contemptible cowardly person.

[US]C.G. Booth ‘Stag Party’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2006) 113: Those pansies tailed Mayo and me [...] top Hawthorne Street.
[US]F. Wead Ceiling Zero Act III: Don’t worry about me. I’m no pansy.
[Aus]J. Morrison Port of Call 253: ‘By cripes, Jim, you’re a hard doer all right!’ ‘You’re no pansy, either, if it comes to it.’.
[Aus]T. Winton ‘Family’ Turning (2005) 186: You fuckin pansy! screamed Max. What’re you waiting for?
[UK]K. Richards Life 50: Most of it was just taunts, ‘pansy’ and all that.
[Aus](con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘What do you know about trouble, you fucken pansy’.

In derivatives

pansified (adj.) (also pansyfied)

effeminate, homosexual.

[US]‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana II 6: Our pansyfied friend turned petulantly on his colleague.
[UK]J. Symons Man Called Jones (1949) 49: Dick’s a pansyfied type.
S. Delaney Taste of Honey 67: You prefer to stay in this hole with that pansified little freak?
M. Proctor Homicide Blonde 102: She had giggled to herself at the time because he had seemed a bit pansified like, the way he had talked.
[UK]A. Burgess 1985 (1980) 118: ‘With his bloody ballet-dancing and his pansified pretty ways.’ ‘Homosexual?’ ‘He might well be for all I know’.
J. Weisman 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’.
[UK]C. Logue Prince Charming 47: I spoke with a la-di-da voice. I walked in a pansified way.
R. Desmond Libertine 8: High-falut-in’ bloody arty-crafty types like him and his pansified friends.

In compounds

pansy-ass

see separate entries.

In phrases

pansy up (v.)

of a man, to titivate oneself in an effeminate manner.

[US]R. Chandler ‘Pearls Are a Nuisance’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 101: ‘Don’t pansy up on me,’ he snarled.
(ref. to 1930s)S. Gontarski Companion to Beckett 233: The slang term ‘to pansy up’ was still current in the 1930s; its contemporary British equivalent is ‘to tart up’.