Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a riotous hooligan, a roisterer; of a girl or young woman, promiscuous, tom-boyish.

c.1600		Brave Eng. Gypsy in Collier Book of Roxburghe Ballads (1847) 185: Our knockers make no noise, We are no roaring boyes.
1608		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 2 (1630) II i: Ile goe visit all the mad rogues now, and the good roaring boyes.
1611		Middleton & Dekker [play title] The Roaring Girl.
1615		T. Overbury New and Choise Characters n.p.: A Roaring Boy [...] He sleeps with a tobacco-pipe in’s mouth; and his first prayer i’th’ morning is, hee may remember whom he fell out with ouer-night.
1620		Rowlands Night Raven 8: The Roaring-boy and his Punke: Punke I lacke money, how hast thriu’d to day?
1630		J. Taylor ‘Watermens Suite’ Works (1869) II 174: I myself have often met with a roaring boy (or one of the cursed crew).
1640		The Wandering Jew 62: Roaring Boyes whom whole streets of Constables (now and then) cannot tame.
1640		H. Mill Nights Search I 42: Two roaring blades being on a time in drink.
1658		Mennis & Smith ‘The Blacksmith’ Wit Restor’d (1817) 283: The Roreing-Boy who every one quayles And swaggers, and drinks, and sweares and rayles, Could never yet make the Smith eat his nayls.
1660		Wandring Whore I 6: That Sack was poured in on one side by such Cullies as Priss Fotheringhams, and suck’t out on the other, which is a new fashioned Cup for our roaring boys to drink in.
c.1681		‘Merry Boys of Christmas’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1885) V:1 82: Come, come, my roaring ranting Boys, / let’s never be cast down.
1693		‘Francis Winter’s Last Farewell’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 236: I spent my days with roaring boys, / and little thought of death.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 255: With roaring Boys she diverts her time, / And all the Week makes Holliday. [Ibid.] III 267: Che’ve seen Lords and earls, / And roaring fine Girls, / Turn up their tails at fifteen a.
1739		R. Bull Grobianus 122: Be loud tho’ little; fill the House with Noise, For Tipplers most an end are roaring Boys.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 89: Thus welcome are these roaring boys, / Both to the Dardan troops and Troy’s.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 42: Yet I can have but little peace / About my roaring boys of Greece.
1782		Hants Chron. 7 Oct. 4/2: Mounseer shall powder, queue and club me. Gad, I’ll be a roaring blade.
1786		J. O’Keeffe Wicklow Mountains 35: When young they called me roaring boy.
1791		Scots Mag. 1 Jan. 30/2: His roaring blades were pledging round / Their toasts, in brimming bumpers crown’d.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 22: At the next play of yours I will bring down a set of roaring boys that shall make all the critics [...] civil. [Ibid.] II 130: Here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades.
1841		‘Paddy Whack Of Ballyhack’ Dublin Comic Songster 140: The roaring boys who made a noise, / And thwack’d me like the devil.
1851		‘Joys of Paddy’s Wedding’ Irish Songster 21: Roaring boys all at Paddy’s wedding.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 115: What must it be to listen to the same bold staves out of the mouths of real ‘roaring boys,’ some of them, possibly, the descendants of the very heroes who rode ‘up Holborn Hill in a cart’.
1877		‘Gentleman of the Army’ Laughing Songster 155: The roaring boys, who made a noise, / And thwack’d me like the devil.
1883		Punch 14 Apr. 180/1: Our young friend has evidently been reading an article in which he is compared [...] with our modern [...] University ‘roaring boys.’.
1897		C. Whibley ‘Moll Cutpurse’ Book of Scoundrels 59: She is remembered [...] not only as the Queen Regent of Misrule, the benevolent tyrant of cly-filers and heavers, of hacks and blades, but as the incomparable Roaring Girl.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 20/2: There were definite shades of the ‘Larrikin’ in the sharps’ get-up and roaring-boy antics.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 20/2: There were definite shades of the ‘Larrikin’ in the sharps’ get-up and roaring-boy antics.