Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an effeminate man, a homosexual.

c.1910		Hole in the Elephant’s Bottom in Bold (1979) 111: Two nancy boys came on one day / Though the manager tried hard to stop ’em.
1927		in M. Houlbrook Sun among Cities (2002) [from police statements 8.1.27] 175: Police observed a series of parties in a Fitzroy Square basement flat, resort of what are known as ‘nancy boys’.
1931		E. Blair ‘Hop-Picking Diary’ 28 Aug. in Complete Works X (1998) 218: He and some others [...] had discovered one of their number to be a ‘Poof’ or Nancy Boy.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1957		C. Lee diary 12 Dec. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 15: Said I was a proper sailor. Not like those nancy boys in P&O.
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 61: His situation is very much like that of the nancy boy.
1976		(ref. to 1940s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 126: When I’d seen other boys pushing their siblings in prams [...] I used to call them ‘nancy boys’.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 81: Up to 1939 ‘nancy-boy’ and ‘pansy’ were names for elegantly-dressed young men. During the military service in the war (or if they went to prison) men came across homosexuality and a new meaning for ‘nancy-boy’.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 26: ‘Och, it is isn’t the all too well-known nancy-boy himself!’.
1997		(con. 1950s) J. Byrne Slab Boys [film script] 116: I often wonder how a pair of greasy-quiffed nancy boys like you would’ve fared in the tropics.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 39: Does your fancy man kiss you like that, you crazy fucking nancy boy?
2002		(ref. 1940s) B. Morrison Things My Mother Never Told Me 159: A conchie and a nancy boy, growled Arthur.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 84: He thought I was an over-educated, up-myself nancy boy.
2012		G.S. Manson (con. 1943) Coorparoo Blues [ebook] No point smellin’ like a nancy boy.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 141: [I] rebuff three attempts at chit-chat from the nancy boy on the till.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1990		R.G. Barratt ‘Plague on Puffers’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] I didn’t smoke any of those nancy-boy filter tip things.
1999		Bug (Aus.) 29 June 🌐 The modern batch of league players may as well [...] take up that nancy-boy game, aerial ping-pong.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 12: Benjamin Franklin wasn’t some nancy-boy novelist who wrote sensitive books.