Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also working broad, ...chick, ...lady, ...woman) a prostitute [broad n.² (2)/chick n.¹ (3)].

1925		S. Miller ‘Kitchen Mechanic Blues’ lyrics] Women [...] talk about me, they lies on, calls me out of my name; / All their men come to see me just the same. / I’m just a working gal, poor working gal.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 236: Might be a working-girl.
1937		‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 198: ‘Call Girls’ (Working girls who take pay for the pleasure they give and are subject to telephone calls by hotel keepers and others).
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 163: She had a fine stable of working-girls who went to hotel rooms for fifty bucks a throw.
1959		Murtagh & Harris Who Live In Shadow (1960) 16: Where did he get that suit? Oh, from a working chick, you know, a working chick.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 155: I’m a working girl, love. Ten shillings to you.
1968		‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 51: Working broad, n. A prostitute.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 40: male-female encounters In addition to hos, ladies, and bitches, women are also called working broads.
1977		B. Davidson Collura (1978) 143: Collura recognized them immediately as ‘working chicks’ – call girls.
1978		(con. WWII) T. Sanchez Hollywoodland (1981) 78: Don’t be a palooka. Give a working girl a break.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 41: ‘Working women’ or ‘women in the trade’ (prostitutes) have a deep scorn for charity molls [...] because they delude themselves and are not prepared to admit they are just as ‘bad’ as a harlot.
1987		in Delacoste & Alexander Sex Work (1988) 160: Norman knew a working girl named Linda.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 7: Most working girls were like that, their noses open wider than their cunts.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 137: Shelley was a working girl up King’s Cross these days could earn a few.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 30 Jan. 15: A £20,000 grant from the Memorial Fund will be used to pay the college fees of five ‘working girls’.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 204/1: working girl n. a prostitute.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 107: Every now and then you will find a working girl who not only sits on a goldmine, but has a heart of gold as well.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] A motley band of working ladies, nightclubbers and trannies congregated under an oak tree.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] ‘Back on the game?‘ [...] ‘Stripping isn’t prostitution — not that there’s anything wrong with being a working lady’.
2012		G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was 44: A young working woman [...] stood outside a room in a sheer slip.
2013		T. Piccirilli Last Whisper in the Dark 56: I still didn’t understand [...] why she was interested in playing the role of a semiprostitute [...] or if it was all a sex game.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 37: [They] looked working girls up and down the way you would a horse at a town fair.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 137: They had even picked up some women who turned out to be working girls [...] Ronnie [...] snorted coke off the sexiest hooker’s ass.

2. an effeminate male prostitute.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 144: The effeminate ones (working girls) may drop a hairpin in conversation or otherwise advertise availability; this is called posting flyers.
1997		A. Highcrest At Home on the Stroll 20: ‘Working girl’ (or boy).