Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a red-headed person; thus red hair; also as a term of address/nickname.

1675		Head Nugae Venales 240: Hereupon Carrets fell on his Knees and beg’d his Pardon.
1685		S. Wesley Maggots 57: The Ancients or Historians Lies have told, / Pure Carrots call’d pure Threds of beaten Gold .
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 155: When we begin to box, depend, / I’ll make your carrots stand on end.
1788		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 20: To all lovers of carrots we would recommend this fair complex, and blue-ey’d nymph.
1795		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Pindariana’ Works (1796) IV 400: Her hair (’clep’d carrots by the Wits) was red.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 265: I had buckled my carrots in M.D. array.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1832		Satirist (London) 6 May 147/1: There vas Carrots and bandy-legged Jacky, / [...] / Vith dingy and lushing-house Bet.
1846–48		Thackeray Book of Snobs (1889) 32: Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her carrots of ringlets.
1849		Sam Sly 20 Jan. 2/2: He advises S—n K—y to beware of Carots [sic], or he will deceive her.
1853		Dickens Bleak House (1991) 311: There is much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or the Brick.
1864		M. Lemon Jest Book 205: Carrots Classically Considered. Why scorn red hair?
1866		Greenwood A Little Ragamuffin 184: Carrots ought to be here now.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter I 14: ‘[C]carrots,’ a name which had been given him in consequence of his hair having assumed a deeper tinge, and was now in colour [...] ‘a cross between an early short-horned carrot and a scarlet-topped raddish’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Feb. 17/3: ‘Ugly old fright! you’ll never get a beau; / ’Tis your red hair, like carrots, that deterred / The men from saying ‘Have me’ long ago!’.
1888		Albert Chevalier ‘A Coster’s Courtship’ 🎵 The gals they call ’er ‘carrots’ but ’er ’air’s a lovely brown.
1898		J.D. Brayshaw Slum Silhouettes 31: Daisy, wiv long goldin ’air – carrots the women called it.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 11 May 499: ‘What!’ she cried, ‘kiss a boy with a red, red head! Kiss Carrots! He! he! he!’.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Apr. 8/6: To cut it short them 2 arranged / To stouch, sir, for a quid; / Melbourne ‘carrots,’ and the one / Of the New Zealand bid.
1914		W.L. George Making of an Englishman I 69: ‘Look at that one with the green eyes and red hair,’ I said [...] ‘Carrots!’.
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 225: Carrots had the big bag in one hand.
1930		S.J. Perelman in Marschall That Old Gang o’ Mine (1984) 148: ‘Carrots,’ the red-headed irrepressible office-boy.
1940		Eve. Teleg. 11 Oct. 3/2: [story title] Carrots Feels Homesick.
1951		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 16 Aug. 3/5: Many redheads consider the colour of their hair a very mixed blessing. First of all it’s the cry of ‘carrots!’ to contend with.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 190: Redheads attract a barrage of nicknames: [...] carrots, carrot-top.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 16: His hair [...] was red. His other soubriquet had once been ‘Carrots’.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 112: Everyone called him ‘arrots’ because of his spiky red hair.