Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an insignificant, contemptible person.

1577		Holinshed Irish Chronicle 7: The golden Poet set foorth the ougly dandeprat in his coulours.
1582		Stanyhurst Of Virgil his Æneis IV: A cockney dandiprat hopthumb.
1593		G. Harvey Pierce’s Supererogation 62: A shrimpe in Witt, a periwinkle in Art, a dandiprat in Industrie.
1602		Middleton Blurt, Master Constable B1: Slid Dandiprat, this is the Spanish cuttall that [...] fled twenty miles.
1622		Massinger Virgin-Martyr II i: The smug dandiprat smells us out whatsoever we are doing.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk II 383: These little ends of men and dandiprats (whom in Scotland they call whiphandles, and knots of a tar-barrel).
1656		‘Basilius Musophilus’ Don Zara Del Fogoy 108: The Dand-prat Deity sits triumphing in his own Trenches.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 191: Not to bring thy Trollops hither, / As thou hast done this Dandiprat.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Dandyprat, a little puny fellow.
1706		R. Estcourt Fair Example III iii: boy.: A Candle, Sir! ’tis broad Daylight yet. whims.: What then, you little Dandyprat? If we have a mind to a Candle we will have a Candle.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Dandy prat. An insignificant or trifling fellow.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		W. Scott Kenilworth II 11: It is even so, my little dandieprat – But who the devil could teach it thee.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 92: [He] compelled every mountybank, and elbow-shaker, frezier, bully-trap, and janizary, lolly-poop, sea-crab, caper merchant. Badger, Dandy-pratt, and Fidlam-ben [...] tu muster in his army.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime 136: Popes, emperors, czars, fine women, and fair men, / Smug dandiprats that will delight your eyes.
1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 204: She may not to-morrow play as roguish a one to [...] any other smart Pink-an-eye Dandiprat that hangs about the Court.
1872		C.S. Calverley ‘The Cock & The Bull’ Works (1901) 111: By way o’ chop, barter or exchange – / ‘Chop’ was my snickering dandiprat’s own term.