Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Ling. Fr./Polari) hair; thus riah-zshumpah, a hairdresser.

1896		Mirror of Life 13 June 15/2: Bill Hatcher has lost the chief ornament of man—the riah on the pot-pil.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society Appendix 3, 167: Riha, hair.
1966		Took & Feldman ‘Bona Prods’ Round the Horne 16 Apr. [BBC radio] I see Samson as huge and all butch, with great bulging thews and whopping great lallies, with long blond riah hanging right down his Jim and Jack.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 172: riha (Brit gay sl, a garbling) head hair.
1979		Maledicta III:2 248: Some US (Pig Latin agfay) and UK (Cockney and camp words such as riah – hair) in words do appear spelled bassackwards.
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 139: Parlyaree in homosexual use (along with backslang riah = hair, which Hauser gets as ‘riha’) gives us nanti (no).
1991		(ref. to 1930s) in Porter & Weeks Between the Acts 138: Riah, that’s hair backwards. But you have other things, hands are lappers, legs are lallipegs, breasts are jubes, eyes are ocals or opals.
2003		(ref. to 1960s) Baker & Stanley Hello Sailor! 99: Shipmates might talk to each other in Polari about who was fanciable: their dolly eek (pretty face), bona riah (nice hair).
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 59: Backslang is a language form that writes or pronounces words backwards, for example, ecaf (face), riah (hair), say (yes), yob/yobbo (boy).
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 297/1: riah hair [...] riah shusher a hair dresser.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 33: Twas de rigeur in those junos for Parisien palones to pomp themselves up with pompadour riah.