Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. night-time.

1747		Life and Character of Moll King 12: But who had you in your Ken last Darkee?
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 43: ’Tis a rum Darky, and Oliver shows; ’tis a good Night and the Moon shines.
1781		G. Parker View of Society II 132: These fellows (the Peterers) infested the out-skirts of the Metropolis some years ago, and about Darkey, or when Oliver don’t widdle, watched country carriages, and cut off whatever was tied to them.
1791		‘Highway-man’s Flash Song’ Confessions of Thomas Mount 20: We bid them a good darky, / they roll’d the road to town.
1801		G. Hangar Life, Adventures and Opinions II 60: Your flash-man, is [...] dorsing a darkey upon the queer roost with some other rum blowen.
c.1816		‘The Night Before Larry Was Stretched’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 81: Then at darkey we waked him in clover, / And sent him to take a ground-sweat.
1828		‘The Song of the Young Prig’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 172: The cleanest angler on the pad, / In daylight or the darkey.
1834		‘All England Now are Slanging It’ Museum of Mirth 39/2: You shall pass the darkey in the roundy-ken.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 77: She stalled a lushy swaddie to a doss t’other darky.
1852		Kendal Mercury 3 Apr. 6/1: ‘Well, Dick,’ enquires the donna, ‘did ye see many coves what are likely to dorse (sleep) here this darkey?’.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 206/2: We could average our duey bionk peroon a darkey, or two shillings each, in the night.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo xiv: She had to parker letty every darkie, and parker for someone to look arter me.

2. (UK und.) in fig. sense, that which is hidden; self-effacement, silence, etc.

1850

Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: Fly as a hammer. I goes in this swag—darky’s the thing.

3. (also darkie) a ‘dark’, i.e. shuttered, lantern.

1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Darkee. A dark lanthorn used by housebreakers. Stow the darkee, and bolt, the cove of the crib is fly; hide the dark lanthorn, and run away, the master of the house knows that we are here.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 231: Bob fished for the darkey—the musical instrument—and the post of honour, alias the supporter of peace; but he was not yet complete, for he had dropped his canister-cap.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 210: Crape, keys, centre-bits, darkies — nothing forgotten!
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 369: I have got my own clasp-knife – a darkey – and a small jimmey.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 382: The darkie — a lantern — was little used.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 81/1: When Joe lit his ‘darkey’ I saw we were surounded by piles of valuable silks and velvets.
1870		Rochdale Obs. 24 Dec. 6/2: The thief requires [...] a ‘darkey,’ a crowbar [etc].
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 416: I lit the darkey.

4. a night watchman.

1833		‘Moll Slobbercock’ in Funny Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 46: Ah! tarry my cock till the grim darkey passes, / The daffy and gatter have got in your head.
1880		D.W. Barrett Life and Work among Navvies 36: You see that light in ‘Darkey’s’ hut?

5. a mystery, a ‘dark horse’.

1850

‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 3 Mar. 3/3: I know ther last [horse] was ther best of ther two, and I beleeve, from all I hears, he is so still; but then he's a darky and t’other’s a respektible public runner. But I means to hav my tin on the darky, and, pend pon it, them as backs him at his prezent prise will have ther best on it.

6. twilight.

1864, 1867, 1870

Hotten Sl. Dict.

7. see darkie n.