Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also night nymph) a euph. for a prostitute.

1632		W. Lithgow Rare Adventures (2005) I 31: these vermillion nymphs, to let me understand they travelled with a cheerful stomach, would often run races, skipping like wanton lambs ..
1687		Etherege letter in Vieth Attribution in Restoration Poetry (1963) 244: You and I were ne’er so bold to turn the fair Cuffle when she fled us into a tree, not dreaming she would grow as big as one of Evelyn’s oaks, nor ourselves into bulls when we carried the two draggle-tailed nymphs one bitter frosty night over the Thames to Lambeth.
1707		Farquhar Beaux’ Strategem III ii: The nymph that with her twice ten-hundred pounds, / With brazen engine hot, and quoif clear-starched, / Can fire the guest in warming of the bed.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 114: Men so selfish, false and rude, / Nymphs so young and yet so lew’d.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 15: With the Chosen Nymph to Bed he flew.
1737		Pope Mother Gin 25: When rum-rigg’d at Smithfield’s annual Shows, To Drurian Nymphs we pay our solemn vows.
1741		W. Kennett ‘Armour’ in Potent Ally 1: All ye Nymphs [...] Known by White-apron, bart’ring Love with Cit.
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 311: He sometimes considered her as one of those nymphs who [...] practise upon the hearts and purses of unwary and unexperienced youths.
1758		S. Centlivre The Wonder Prologue: Our Author flies from such a Partial Jury / As wary Lovers from the Nymphs of Drury.
1766		Midnight Spy 27: There’s always a number of those engaging nymphs plying about this place in quest of homeward-bound sailors, whom they fleece of their money and commodities.
1775		‘Mrs Japp’ in Ranger’s Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh n.p.: This lady has enticed more young Nymphs to appear at the Shrine of Venus, than any priestess ever did in this City.
1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 21-28 July n.p.: As knowing in the way of Pollution, as an Nymph in King’s Place.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 241: Nymphs, Nereids, or what vulgar tongues call drabs.
1797		M. Leeson Memoirs (1995) III 169: About five hundred members, presented the freedom of their commonwealth to me and my nymphs and nymphlings.
1801		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Epistle to Count Rumford’ Works (1801) V 460: Nymphs of delight would leave each Cyprian Bower.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 48: A celebrated abbess named Peg Plunkett with a few of her nymphs.
1819		Beppo in London xvi: Paris would subdue his anguish, ‘With nymphs for whom no shepherd need to languish’.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 347: With a Duchess so grand, / Or a nymph of the Strand.
1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 12 Feb. 438/1: Here in cool grot and cobweb cell, / We roaring blades and night-nymphs dwell.
1835		Duncombe Dens of London 83: Extolling to the skies the beauties and perfections of another nymph.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 29 Jan. n.p.: The third tier of the Olympic was crowded [...] with the pretty nymphs of Gotham.
1846		New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 30: The lovely nymphs are generally of French origin.
1854		Thackeray Newcomes I 204: Conversing with a Clipstone-street nymph.
1862		Golden Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 4 Sept. 3/1: If he had his time to begin again [...] the procuring a farm and wife would be his main study, instead of ‘lambing down’ his money among the Sydney nymphs.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 26 Oct. n.p.: A friend [...] saw the ‘super’ in a jewelry store and found that it was a nymph from Lou. Clark’s den who left it.
1885		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 28 Nov. 9: [pic. caption] Stript To The Skin. Two Brooklyn Nymphs of the Highway ‘Stand-up’ a Little Five Year-old Urchin.
1888		H. King Savage London 33: Loo never associated with the district society, holding herself altogether superior to the ‘water nymphs’.
1931		(con. 1918) E.W. Springs Rise and Fall of Carol Banks 158: These Manhattan nymphs insult you while running up your dinner check.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 94: To strut before a wanton ambling nymph.
2001		(con. late 19C) C. Jeffords Shady Ladies of the Old West 🌐 In the Kansas trail towns common terms included [...] ‘nymphs du prairie’.

2. a nymphomaniac, an allegedly sexually insatiable woman.

1916		H.N. Cary Sl. of Venery.
1955		W. White ‘Wayne University Sl.’ AS XXX:4 302: nymph; pig; sexpot, n. Woman of loose morals.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 73: That rotten, whore-hopping baboon who ran off with the nymph, Zola.
1985		O. Hawkins Chili 79: She wasn’t a nymph [...] I think her thing was cum freakism. She just liked to have it spill into her.
2024		C. Stella Joey Piss Pot 246: ‘Ready for round three?’ ‘Jesus, you’re a nymph’.

3. (US campus) an effeminate male.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS.