Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a pretty woman.

1765		Foote Commissary in Works (1799) II 16: A body might as soon procure a hare or a partridge as a pretty.
c.1850		Mrs. Cuddle’s Bed-Room Lectures (10–15) 6: Pray where have you been all the day. / With sweet Miss Prettyman I suppose.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 377: Oh, that happy time, when he and she are ‘lambs’ and ‘angels,’ ‘pretties’ and ‘dearests’.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 8 Mar. 3/1: [headline] St Louis Pretties Get Up a Club Against Widders.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Dec. 1/1: The stout squire of pretties conveyed three clyners to Canning for an afternoon’s crabbing.
1927		Nichols & Tully Twenty Below Act I: Come on, pretty.
1932		‘R. Scully’ Scarlet Pansy 28: One jocose militia man yelled ‘Look at pretty standing there by that tree’.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 132: He is a young guy and the pretty with him is also young.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 131: I lay on the grass near a brace of foreign pretties.
1966		T.V. Olsen Hard Men (1974) 17: Tell us your name, pretty.
1970		D. Jenkins Dogged Victims 263: Jack's is where we went at night ‘to hustle the pretties,’ as Moron Tom would phrase it .

2. (US) usu. in pl., an attractive object, e.g. an item of jewellery or clothes.

1900		R.H. Savage Brought to Bay 57: ‘Texas Dave’ expressed a wish to take a run down to the ‘Big Store’ [...] to catch up a few pretties for the gal at home.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 165: Mercedes lifted the lid of the chest and gazed fondly at her burial pretties.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘The Game’ in Moods of Ginger Mick 111: So I’m a little corperil, wiv pretties on me arm.
1925		D. Hammett ‘The Scorched Face’ Story Omnibus (1966) 74: She says some of Mrs. Correll’s pretties disappeared last week.
1932		J. Dixon Free To Love 119: Think how it will hurt. No pretties, no pearls, no Em.
1937		E. Raymond Marsh 270: I expect Old Moll Drein’s pretties were tawdry stuff.
1945		‘Henry Green’ Loving (1978) 174: As soon as I’ve got me a few pretties together.

3. an innocent, hitherto untouched young sex object, either male or female.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 155: Young chits, fresh meat and fresh fish [...] pretties and chicken (tender white meat) are chased by rapacious chicken-hawks.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 38: You, my little pretties, will serve in other ways.