Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) sordid, sloppy, contemptible, excessive, seedy.

1939		Forum and Century July 45/1: Depending on how good or how ‘raunchy’ we [i.e. Air Force cadets] were, we drilled from one to three hours in the torrid heat, t, until every sun ray was a spear piercing the flat tops of our parade hats.
1942		C.R. Bond 28 Mar. in A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 147: My first landing was raunchy.
1946		Ligonier Echo (PA) 27 Sept. 2/2: Raunchy — Drippy.
1954		Central N.J. Home News 2 May 10/2: He cited several other examples [...] ‘raunchy’ meaning sloppy, ‘chicken signifying cowardly, and ‘ chow down,’ meaning to eat.
1967		D. Simmons ‘Terms Used in a Men’s Dormitory’ in AS XLII:4 229: raunchy, adj.; ronchie, adj. A pejorative adjective used to modify anything which the speaker wishes to denigrate.
1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 167: Welcoming all on board, no matter how unbelievably Truck Stop Low Rent or raunchy.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 256: We lined up [...] feeling raunchy and scroungy and pissed off.
1984		Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 22 Sept. We walked down to Steve D’s and watched movies and then I ralphed. I did it twice. It was pretty raunchy. I think I’m going to calm down on drugs from now on.
1998		Courier (Waterloo, IA) 2 Sept. 24/5: ‘Raunchy’: gross or disgusting. ‘Sick and wrong’: same as ‘raunchy’.

2. (US campus/teen) inferior, cheap.

c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Raunchy: Anything in bad condition.
1959		L.P. Boone ‘Gator Sl.’ AS XXXIV:2 156: Almost anything, especially anything bad, can be branded cruddy or raunchy.
1966		Current Sl. I:3 6/2: Raunchy, adj. Rotten.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 158: raunchy disgusting, gross, ugly, tacky.

3. (orig. US) suggestive, sexually provocative, smutty, salacious.

1967		‘Ellery Queen’ Face to Face (1982) 17: I fell in love with him. In a raunchy sort of way he’s beautiful .
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 59: A silken mass of moving ecstasy programmed by filthy raunchy lust.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 4: Matters that the majority of readers will have in hand as they fondle the raunchy reading material.
1992		D. Jarman letter 19 Jan. Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 72: We’d both expected something raunchier [...] maybe they were on their best behaviour.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 27 Feb. 26: It remains to be seen quite how raunchy the book turns out to be.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] [I] gave him the raunchiest fucking lap dance I’d ever done.

4. (US campus) ill, unwell.

1975

G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 64: raunchy adj 1: Bad, terrible, or sick feeling.

5. (US) drunk.

1960, 1975

Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

6. (US) violent.

1978		R. Charles Brother Ray 134: [S]o much raunchy shit had happened there. A promoter slapped Little Richard onstage; Johnny Ace blew his brains out playing Russian roulette there.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 104: He had took a slat from a bed and beat her face with it. Them the types of fights they would have. Real raunchy, physical.