Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a woman, a sweetheart, a girlfriend.

1651		T. Randolph Hey for Honesty III iii: My Jane and I full right merrily this jollity will avouch [...] Together we’ll dance a clatter-de-pouch.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 May 18/4: Exchange, we beg; we for a paper pine / In which ‘religious articles’ will shine. / In moral lessons, though, you must be plain, / And give no quarter to an erring Jane! / Point out the Light that is to guide the man, / And in its keeping he’ll avoid the Ban.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Spoil-Sport Spectacles’ Sporting Times 11 Apr. 1/3: ‘You are joking, Agamemnon,’ said his justly-angered Jane.
1915		Van Loan ‘The Extra Man’ in Buck Parvin 21: As soon as this jane finds out that La Rue drags down one-fifty a week, she’s goin’ to go ropin’ for him.
1921		Broadway Brevities Dec 12/2: Glimpsing Arthur Ashley coming out of Freeman’s the other night with a Jane and an armful of food. Our veteran cor says he thinks the Jane might have been Alma Y—.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 253: D’ye think you can get it through your skull ’at Rags Dempster and this Jane has framed you?
1930		E. Glyn Flirt & Flapper 14: Flapper: Say, that’s worse than our hootch! — You were some Janes.
1930		M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 78: ‘He’ll be giving you the air pretty soon. He’s got another jane, and he’s nuts about her’.
1933		R. Tate Doughman 34: I’ve got all youse dames taped off, believe me! Was out with a different Jane six nights last week.
1943		C.S. Montanye ‘Little Pieces’ in Exciting Detective Mar. 🌐 ‘Janes [...] only liked a guy for what they could get out of him’.
1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 114: You see him in suburban dance halls [...] with the local ‘janes’.
1950		J.T. Farrell ‘Milly and the Porker’ in Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 196: Listen, Porky, you’re too goddamned fat to get in the saddle with a jane like Milly.
1961		T. Murphy Whistle in the Dark Act II: I never seen him kiss a jane once.
1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 83: His date was a cocky jane with a petulant mouth.
1982		(con. 1930s–50s) E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 19: Mots, birds, bits of fluff, lovely Janes.
1999		C. Logue Prince Charming 44: The other Jane – plump, jolly – told me her land-girl sister’s story.

2. an effeminate or homosexual man.

1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 253: The Janes, iron-hoofs (or hooves). Effeminate youths in blackmail gangs.
1977		A. Brooke Last Toke 138: All the willies to this place be janes.

3. (US) a women’s lavatory.

1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 251: A jane also is a toilet for women, i.e., a female john.
1997		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.

4. (camp gay) the embodiment of one’s feminine side.

1980

Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 232: The feminine side of one’s nature is Jane.

5. see jean n.