’Arry/’Arriet, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

’Arry/’Arriet n.

[popular proper name]

1. the generic Cockney man or woman .

1878		Punch 11 May 205/2: [title] ’Arry on Politics.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 3 May 2/3: ‘There’s a Johnny say quoi [...] ’ said ‘Arry the other day.
1885		Sydney Morn. Herald 4 Nov. 7/2: ‘’Arry’ or ‘’Arriet,’ are here dressed in the extreme of fashion. Both are loud in manner, loud in speech and loud in the colours they affect [...] he is the typical young rough from a suburban boot factory, and she is a sewing machinist.
1885		Western Dly Press 8 Apr. 3/.1: The small distinction which ’Arry and ’Arriet make between fast days and feast days.
1887		‘’Arry on Angling’ in Punch 30 July 45/1: You’ll find that in potting the puntist they’re ’Arries right down to the ground.
1888		Aberdeen Free Press 27 Dec. 5/5: The East End ‘’Arry’ and ‘’Arriet’ amusing themselves on merry-go-rounds and swings.
1889		J.K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 225: ’Arry and Lord Fitznoodle have been left behind at Henley.
1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 6 Apr. 118/2: The modern music hall [...] where the ’Arrystocracy feel [...] even more at home than their patrician brethren.
1889		Pall Mall Gazette 27 Sept. 2/2: £750 which it abstracts every year from the public funds to go a-’arry-and-arrietting on the river [F&H].
1890		J. Payn Notes from ‘News’ 85: The preference of our ’Arries for making love in public, on Bank holidays [...] has lately been severely and justly commented upon.
1893		Punch 26 Aug. 88/1: [title] ’Arriet on Labour.
1901		T. & G. LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Come Along, Let’s Make Up 🎵 Going down to Chingford, ’Arry and his 'Arriett [sic] / Merrily will jog in donkey cart.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Aug. 34/4: [T]here are at least three distinct stages in the courtship of ’Arry and ’Arriet and their kind. ‘Walkin’-out’ comes first – the initial nibbling of the fish at the bait.
1908		Hull Dly Mail 22 Sept. 3/1: ‘Arriet on the Switchback. My ’eart’s in my boots! / My ’at’s on one side! / ’E calls this a spree!
1909		G.R. Bacchus Maudie 126: The couple spent simultaneously just as ‘Arry and ‘Arriet might have done behind a bush on Hampstead Heath.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 154: They will, on high days and holidays, do their best to make the name of ’Arry a byword, with painted horns and Kruger-tiddlers. [Ibid.] 191: The days of the ’Arry are numbered. The ’Arry of a banal convention: the ’Arry of Punch, of the music-halls, of Cockney rhymesters, is already extinct. For it is the essence of ’Arry that he should be young. An ’Arry of more than forty years is an inconceivable monstrosity.
1912		H. Lawson ‘The Lily of St Leonards’ in Roderick (1972) 801: A long brownish jacket of the style [...] affected by the English servant-girl of ten or twelve years ago, or ’Arriet of East End and London North at an earlier date.
1923		J. Manchon Le Slang 54: Arry [...] sobriquet de l’homme du peuple londonien. Le fém. est Arrie.
1933		Iola Register (KS) 1 May 4/2: Not slatterns of the ’Arriet type, but well-dressed, fashionable damsels.
1934		‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana II 10: Two cockneys were chatting on diverse subjects, when Alf turns to ’Arry and says [etc.].

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Mar. 9/3: Anyone who has ever been in a London music hall will remember how few women were to be seen there. The attendance was mainly composed, in the better places, of men about town – in the lower ones, of men about town also, but more of the ’Arry stamp.
1898		Sth Wales Echo 25 Jan. 2/7: Among the ‘drunks and disorderlies’ cxharged at Marylebone Police Court [...] was a young woman of the ‘’Arriet’ type.

In derivatives

’Arrydom (n.)

the world of the typical Cockney costermonger.

1883		Kent & Sussex Courier 13 June 3/5: An ornamental man, one who by some means crept out of ‘’Arrydom’ into the ranks of the Fourth estate.
1885		Sat. Rev. (London) 26 Mar. in Ware (1909) 10/1: It seems a pity that the Whitehall Review did not confine itself to saying, in the speech of ’Arrydom, ‘You’re another’ instead of appealing to a special jury.
1893		Graphic (London) 24 June 17/2: The honeymoon in ’Arrydom is [...] at once passionate and picturesque.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

’Arryism (n.) (also ’Arrietism)

vulgar behaviour.

1880		G. Aberigh-Mackay 21 Days in India 186: It is strange that one who is modest and inoffensive in his own country should immediately on leaving it exhibit some of the worst features of ’Arryism.
1889		Essex Newsman 8 July 2/6: Last Sunday every bush and bosky ferntree was surrounded, and ’Arryism and ’Arrietism reigned supreme.
1895		Bristol Mercury 12 June 5/5: Another instance of ’Arryism in the hupper sucles.
1906		Graphic (London) 22 Sept. 11/2: The blatant ’Arryism which now pervades [...] during the season was not universal.

’Arryish (adj.)

typical of a coster.

1880		Wallace in Academy 28 Feb. 156/I: He has a fair stock of somewhat ’arryish animal spirits, but no real humour [F&H].
1895		Derbyshire Advertiser 12 Jan. 7/7: If I possessed any latent spark of ’Arryish ambition [...] it was needless.
1930		Yorks. Post 26 Nov. 6/3: Mr Mottram’s translation of ‘The Misted Mirror’ has its rather unnecessary vulgarities [...] a little ’Arryish for the class involved.

In compounds

’Arry’s worrier (n.)

a concertina.

1897		People 19 Feb. in Ware (1909) 10/1: If our readers are inclined to be curious, they may, on further investigation, discover the player of ‘’Arry’s’ favourite ‘worrier’ in the form of a patient-looking little lady, who sits on the stonework of the railings which guard the select piece of grass and trees.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.