Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the vagina; the maidenhead; thus generic for a woman (see cit. 1613).

1593		Nashe Choise of Valentines (1899) 7: Yet soe yt is, I must haue fresher ware; [...] Fetch gentle mistris Francis forth to me.
1613		Middleton Chaste Maid in Cheapside II i: Here’s all I have, i’faith, take purse and all. [Aside] And would I were rid of all the ware i’ the shop so.
c.1650		ballad in Farmer Merry Songs (1897) III 13: She hath more haire upon her ware / than will stuff a troopers sadle.
1661		‘Peter Aretine’ Strange Newes 3: Wand. Wh—. I [...] spread my imperfect Limbs [...] claping my hand on my market-place, and saying, here’s your Ware boys, which invitation with a wink, a smile and a chuck under the Chin, brings in the bonny Lads.
1680		Merry Milkmaid of Islington 3: It seems you are a kind Country Gentlewoman, that has bestow’d your Maidenhead on your Fathers man, and are come up to have a Citizen salder your broken ware.
1691		Catalogue of Jilts, cracks, prostitutes, night-walkers [...] and others of the linnen-lifting tribe 1: 3. Mrs Eliz. B—w, a very fine Woman, who has been a Dealer in Cullies ever since she was fifteen [...] she has several prices for her Ware, but her usual price is 01l. 01s. 6d .
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:2 26: The crack’d Vessel may repair, / If brisk and young, her broken Ware; / And pass her Maid’nhead, if she’s sound, / To some lewd Fop for fifty Pound.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 69: And thither Whores rampant, that please may repair, / With Master and captain to truck for their Ware.
1732		Progress of a Rake 12: And Peter promis’d to assist / Him with a Morse for his Fist, / And so forth, if he lik’d the Ware.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 64: He huff’d thy ware as well as mine, / And tho’ in every part he’d seen us, / He gave the prize to Madam venus.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Ware, a Woamns Ware, her Commodity.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 90: ‘O wretched man how came you here? / Your instrument has spoil’d my ware, / You have ruin’ me, I fear’.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1833		‘Love in a Watch Box’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 11: As a blowen t’other night was walking about / [...] / Looking for a customer for her ware no doubt.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. the penis; the male genitals.

1683		Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 97: The Surgeon that boasted that he had Nuts of Priapus enow (the spoils of venereal Combats) to button a leaguer-cloak gives a woman sufficient wearning to be careful of her husbands ware.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 60: Our money spent and breeks so torn [...] I’m d---d hard switch’d to hide my ware.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 188: And some sad dog, thy recent tomb, / Lug out his ware and piss upon.
1834		‘Randy Mots of London’ in Libertine’s Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 139: With pleasure at his pole they stare, / His lather-box and all his ware.
1840		‘My Thing Is My Own’ in Fake Away Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 283: A spruce haberdasher first spake me fair, / I would have nothing to do with small ware .
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 49 195/2: ‘It is not my intention to marry a man of small wares! If I ever marry a merchant, it shall [...] be one who deals by wholesale’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.