Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) a euph. for bloody adj.; occas. as adv.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Jun. 22/3: You crimson fool! Shut your gory mouth! Go to vermillion Hades!
1893		H. Lawson ‘The Darling River’ in Roderick (1972) 89: I’ll take blanky good care I won’t be lost again, to be found by a gory old crow.
1901		H. Lawson ‘Send Round the Hat’ in Roderick (1972) 476: An’ he pretends to be so gory soft an’ innocent too.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Dec. 4/7: Possum [...] merely suggested that John was a ‘gory cow,’ or some similar remark.
1909		H. Lawson ‘Billy of Queensland’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 300: A Blank he knows as a Gory Scamp.
1919		Bystander (London) 17 Dec. 3/1: ‘All I want is ter ’ave the (gory) parks back’.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 59: ‘I’m no gory albatross [...] Ain’t got no wings’.