Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a prostitute.

1602		Dekker Satiromastix III i: Name one Madge-owlet, name one.
1606		J. Day Ile of Guls III i: Mopsa, the black swan of beauty, and madg-howlet of admiration.
1629		R. Brome Northern Lasse III ii: I should not be so fond to mistake a Jennie Howlet for a Taffel Gentle.
1632		R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded dramatis personae: Margerie Howlet, a Bawd.
1640		T. Heywood Love’s Mistress II i: Could I be in love with any madge, though she were an Howlet, or with any maid, though she look’t like a Malkin.
1673		‘Loving Chamber-Maid’ in Euing Broadside Ballads No. 179: Tho the old doatard should flutter a while He could not the fashion of Margery spoyl.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 531: The madgehowlet [...] implies either a pope of the female kind, as Pope Joan [...] or rather a donzella, or concubine.
a.1700		‘Country Lovers’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) IV 24: Come shall we gang to yonder hedge To see if Margery be fledge.
1822		Sir W. Scott Peveril of the Peak II 303: ‘Here’s another howlet for ye!’ exclaimed the impetuous old Knight. [Ibid.] IV 96: ‘I was putting on my cap to receive his Majesty.’ ‘With the address of a madge-howlet,’ said Chiffinch.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 508: Belinda’s [...] all nattural [sic], and not a heap of feathers, like a Jinney Howlet, as some gals are.
1882		in J.D. McCabe N.Y. xxxiv 510: (in list of slang terms).
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 185: The elliptic mood is still sometimes found, however, in the advertisements of those on the game, where they delicately refer to Miss Brown, Madam Brown, Itching Jenny, Mary Lane, Madge Howlett and Miss Laycock in shop-window come-ons.

2. the vagina.

1749		Hist. of the Human Heart 36: It will not be long before you know Madge from a Cut.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Madge, the private parts of a woman.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
1847–81		Halliwell Dict. Archaic and Provincial Words II 536/1: Madge (3). The pudendum muliebre. South.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 53: madge Private places.
1882		in J.D. McCabe N.Y. xxxiv 510: (in list of slang terms).
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.