Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the female genitals.

1656		R. Fletcher trans. Martiall his Epigrams X No. 90 95: Why dost thou reach thy Merkin now half dust? Why dost thou provoke the ashes of thy lust? [...] Thou err’st, if this a C--- thou dar’st to call To which no Prick doth now belong at all.
1661		Merry Drollery in Ebsworth Choyce Drollery (1876) 196: He laid her on the ground, / His Spirits fell a ferking, / Her Zeal was in a sound, / He edified her Merkin.
c.1674		Rochester ‘Argument’ in Works (1999) 83: The Crowns of Kings, were offer’d to this Shrine, / Dildoes and Merkins, of the Royal Line.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 121: To please thee I will shew my Merkin.
[1684		Rochester (attrib.) Sodom I i: My Prick to Bald Cunt shal no more resort: / Merkins rub off & often spoile the sport].
1694		French Rogue 181: [A]n old fat Hostess had been lately hang’d [and] she was delivered to the Surgeons to be Anatomiz’d. This put a strange Whim in his Head; which was to get the skinny circle of her merkin Hair.
1707		J. Dunton Bumography 16: Her Rump and Merkin too, it’s said.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. II 6: A strange Whim came into his Head, for hearing that an old fat Hostess, who was lately hang’d [...] had been delivered for an Anatomy, he procured the hairy Circle of her Merkin.
1724		Coles Eng. Dict.
1731		Beau’s Misc. 63: The Buxom young Widow has lost the first Game [...] She’ll [...] stand t’other Game, To pleasure again Her Merkin.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 17: Country girls with nut-brown merkins.
[c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Merkin, Counterfeit hair for womens privy parts].
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. a man who poses as the husband or lover of a lesbian who wishes to hide her real sexual preference [pun on beard n. (3c)].

1997–2001

Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 merkin n 1. a straight man married to or involved with a lesbian. The lesbian may be in the public eye and may have a merkin to hide the fact that she is a lesbian.