Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a ne’er-do-well who, accompanied by his woman, wanders the country, mixing villainy and legitimate work, pursuing neither, it appears, with particular enthusiasm (sometimes known as the drunken tinker n.).

c.1566		Harman Caveat for Common Cursetours in Viles & Furnivall (1907) 59: These dronken Tynckers, called also Prygges, be beastly people.
1592		Groundworke of Conny-catching [as cit. c.1566].
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London 610: They are all prigs, their company spoils all genteel society.
1833		‘Wandering Prigs’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 18: And wand’ring prigs enjoy the hours, / With blear-eyed Sal and dirty Bet.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 181/1: I’m knocked about in public-houses by the Billingsgate roughs, and I’ve been bilked by the prigs.

2. (also prigman) a thief, orig. use a mendicant villain who specializes in stealing clothes from hedgerows where they are left to dry, or poultry from the farmyard.

c.1561		Awdeley Fraternitye of Vacabondes in Viles & Furnivall (1907) 3: A Prygman goeth with a stycke in hys hand like an idle person. His propertye is to steale cloathes of the hedge, which they call storing of the Rogeman: or els filch Poultry, carying them to the Alehouse, whych they call the Bowsyng In, & ther syt playing at cardes and dice, tyl that is spent which they haue so fylched.
1566		T. Drant (trans.) ‘To Iulius Florus’ in Horace his Satyres n.p.: A prigeman from him priuily his mony did purloyne.
1610		Rowlands Martin Mark-all 42: That did the prigg good that bingd in the kisome, / To towre the Coue budge alar’me.
c.1610		Shakespeare Winter’s Tale IV ii: Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig; he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.
1630		J. Taylor ‘A Brood of Cormorants’ in Works (1869) III 8: Liues like a Gentleman by slight of hand, / Can play the Foist, the Nip, the Stale, the Stand, / The Snap, the Curb, the Crossbite, Warpe and Lift, / Decoy, Prig, Cheat (all for a hanging shift).
1648		R. Herrick ‘Upon Prigg’ Hesperides 165: Prigg, when he comes to houses, oft doth [...] steal from thence old shoes.
1669		Nicker Nicked in Harleian Misc. II (1809) 108: There come in shoals of hectors, trepanners, gilts, pads, biters, prigs, divers.
1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 177: Priggs All sorts of Thieves.
1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia V i: Away with ’em! Rogues! Rascals! damned prigs!
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Prig c. a Thief, a Cheat.
1708		True Characters of A Deceitful Petty-Fogger et al. 3: Writing Bills, Bonds, and Acquittances [...] has made him Impudent enough, tho’ but a Pen-feathered Prig, to call himself an Attorney.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 243: The sly Rascals, who call themselves Prigs, which, in their canting language, denotes a Thief.
1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 6: Otherwise I shall bring my own neck into the Noose, and put it in the Power of every little Prigg [...] to pull the Cord.
1724		‘Frisky Moll’s Song’ J. Thurmond Harlequin Sheppard 22: From Priggs that snaffle the Prancers strong, / To you of the Peter Lay, / I pray now listen a while to my song, / How my Boman he [k?]ick’d away.
1732		Harlot’s Progress 30: But in Rememb’rance of the prig, / She kept his Wig-Box, and his Wig.
1743		Fielding Life of Jonathan Wild (1784) II 168: The Prig employs his hands in another’s pocket.
1751		F. Coventry Hist of Pompey Little I 114: That old Prig there, in the great Coat.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 223: A staring, gaping, hair-brain’d prig, / Attempts to steal his hat and wig.
1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 53: Ye priggs, who are troubled with conscience’s qualms.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 212: A staring, gaping, hair-brain’d prig / Attempts to steal his hat and wig.
c.1805		‘Jenny’s Bawbee’ in Jovial Songster 106: She bad [...] The lawyer not to be a prig.
1812		Vaux Memoirs in McLachlan (1964) 82: By degrees we detached ourselves from the society of these veteran prigs.
1822		‘Sprees of Tom, Jerry and Logick’ in C. Hindley James Catnach 1878 124: The prigs and sporting ladies all joined in the row.
1833		‘Remarkable Occurrences’ in Fun Alive O! 31: Neddy Nimble turned a prig, / And got transported for his pains.
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 259: You see in me, then, a cracksman and a prig: but I am staunch to the back-bone amongst pals.
1854		Bell’s Life in Sydney 14 Oct. 3/2: The most ill favoured black a-vised prig imaginable [...] was in the act of rifling Captain More’s specie.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend 1 211: ‘That was not a bad move, hanging myself a little – a very little,’ said the young prig.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 128: It’s better to walk in honest ways [...] than to prowel about in ragged corduroys, and dodge the pleeseman, and be a prig.
1877		S. James Vagabond Papers (3rd series) 135: Sullivan was a London ‘prig,’ who began life in a reformatory.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Prig - A thief.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. [as 1882].
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 30: There’s lots of women prigs that works that line.
1907		D. Stewart Vultures of the City in Illus. Police News 12 Jan. 12/4: ‘I ain’t no common prig, and I ain’t going to blow the gaff or turn nose’.
1918		Nat. Leader (Brisbane) 1 Nov. 8/3: German officers [...] appealed to the general commanding, who said, ‘I will have no dealings with, officers who are thieves.’ The Prussian autocrat is only a low-down prig, a deflected pickpocket after all.

3. a dandy, a fop.

1676		Etherege Man of Mode III iii: What spruce prig is that?
1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia I i: Thou shalt shine, and be as gay as any spruce prig that ever walked the street.
1695		Congreve Love for Love V i: What does the old prig mean?
1703		T. Baker Tunbridge Walks II i: Ev’ry pert Prig with a Patch, and a Cropt-Head o’ Hair, pretends to be a Red-Coat forsooth.
1709		R. Steele Tatler No. 77 n.p.: A Cane is Part of the Dress of a Prig.
1752		Adventurer No. 12 n.p.: He placed more confidence in them, than he would in a formal prig, of whom he knew nothing but that he went every morning and evening to.
1766		Midnight Spy (c.1929) 64: The gaudy prig who sits next to him, Tom Babble, Lord Brainless, and other choice spirits of the first rank.
1773		Foote The Bankrupt I i: I never remark’d the boy to be presumptuous and forward, like some of our pert prigs of the city.
1782		‘A Country Assizes’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 406: The clod-pate squire [...] / Swears, drinks and games with puppies, prigs and smarts.
c.1785		‘Dog & Duck Rig’ in Holloway & Black (1975) I 79: She will meet you with gallows good joaking / And boast of her bilking the prig.
1798		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Tales of Hoy’ Works (1801) V 232: Here too the most important Dicky Dab With puppy-pertness, pretty, pleasant Prig [...] drives in Jehu-stile his whirling Gigg!
1800		G.S. Carey ‘Every Man His Mode’ One Thousand Eight Hundred 29: Sure every man in his way is a prig, / From the cut of his coat, or the tie of his wig.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) III 129: He is a young barrister, with more of the prig than the lawyer about him.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Prig - sometimes in the sense of coxcomb.

4. a cheat.

1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 71: Not a penny was to be screw’d out of the prig.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 183: The sham Pretender Prince of W— / The Prig, they sent o’er to be our K—.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1797		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Ode To the Livery of London’ Works (1801) V 48: Master Pipemaker, don’t be a prig, And let that clay of yours be quite so stiff; Nor in your prowess try to smoke a Queen.
1801		Sporting Mag. Dec. XIX 172/1: O d—n his impudence, send off the prig; / He, he the Author! d—n his lying wig!
1811		J. Poole Hamlet Travestie I vii: Old Polonius too—that sneaking prig.
1829		‘Soho Bazaar’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 194: Here’s a white wig, for a Chancery prig.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 35: I’m a very knowing prig, / With my laced coat and wig / [...] / Because I am the Beadle of the Parish.
1850		A.C. Mowatt Fashion II i: The old prig has got the tin.

5. a pickpocket; a petty thief.

1784		H. Lemoine ‘The Clever Fellow’ in Wit’s Mag. 155/1: And always ready, prigs can tell, / To gig a Smithfield bank.
1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 14: Prigs never give half a chance away if any thing happens.
1838		‘Paul Pry’ Oddities of London Life II 224: ‘prigs’ are a small class of thieves whose operations are principally confined to the illegal appropriation of pocket-books, pocket-handkerchiefs [...] together with any other small matter which may fall in their way [...] and they may therefore be correctly classed under the autolycus genus as ‘snappers up of unconsidered trifles’.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 8 Jan. n.p.: The bully [...] is generally a lazy prig [...] either too indolent or too great a coward to go out pikcing pockets.
1842		Edinburgh Rev. July 486: Prigs (or pickpockets) [...] frequent races, fairs and prize fights.
1894		Motherwell Times 31 Mar. 4/1: If the London prigs, especially pickpockets, were as harmless [...] they would soon be cleared out.