Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of money, counterfeit.

1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 73: There was not an hour in the day past, in which he did not exercise his hand with the Dice, either for naughty half-pence, or Coffee pence.
1678		Proc. Old Bailey 11 Apr. : [They] gave him a naughty Half crown; which coming several times to have changed, they at last apprehended him.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 142: He would often light, where he was drinking, with naughty Sixpences, Shillings [...] or Crowns, which he bought for a small price and put them off again for good, by feaghing them.

2. flashy, vulgarly over-dressed.

c.1864

A. Stephens ‘The Chickaleary Cove’ 🎵 Now kool my downy kicksies – the style for me, Built on a plan werry naughty.

3. (UK Und.) criminal, violent, corrupt.

1824		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 26 Sept. 4/3: Master Neddy Stockman [...] promised to be a naughty kid never no more.
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 243: He leaves it to the ‘seedy coves’ to do all the naughty tricks.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Aug. 26/1: I take this opportunity of advising gay devils, night owls, toughs and naughty boys generally to be more Broosmithian in their treatment of waiters and barmen than they have found necessary in the past.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘The Faltering Knight’ in Chisholm (1951) 72: An’ when I ’ear she’s like to come to ’arm / Amongst a push uv naughty spieler men, / I gets the wind up.
1970		‘Metropolitan Police Sl.’ in P. Laurie Scotland Yard (1972) 325: naughty: violent.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 116: How’s mel and Colly? [...] Bit naughty that, wasn’t it?
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 11: It was really naughty in the old days, because [...] it was always elderly people selling their antiques.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 125: Each gang had a junior faction, of which the mini-Woodchurch were he most numerous and famously naughty.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 29: He was a fuckin gentleman, a fuckin naughty one, but a gent none the less.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 101: I’ve got naughty people want to do me and him [...] damage.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘He’s been naughty, and he’s no longer around’.

4. usu. of prostitutes, promiscuous, amoral.

1826

Pierce Egan’s Life in London 17 Sept. 687/2: [T]he conviviality of his party was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of a bevy of ‘naughty women’ [...] Charlotte said that it was true that, formerly, she was a ‘naughty woman,’ but that she was not so now.

5. malfunctioning, sick.

1989

(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 186: You liver’s frozen and your kidney, that one [...] is naughty.

6. problematic, disturbing.

1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 32: She’ll con him somethin’ rotten, then give ’im the elbow soon as ’e gets naughty about not gettin’ into her knickers.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 152: The business about the Germans [...] don’t seem like the naughty problem it was when I got out of bed.