Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) a bar or ‘nightclub’ at which the hostesses may double as prostitutes.

1955		Palm Beach Post (FL) 13 Feb. 45/5: But the fun-loving GIs aren’t flocking to Phenix City like they did before Patterson’s death slammed the lid on the girlie bars .
1962		Akron Beacon Jrnl (OH) 15 June 2/5: Federal Bankruptcy Court today order the immediate closing [...] of Sweeney’s Little Club, girlie bar and clip joint in downtown Cleveland [...] liquor agents had cited the place for using B-girls to solicit drinks from patrons.
1973		Esquire 80 55: No such area of possible misunderstanding is present in that traditional Hong Kong institution, the girlie bar [...] This was home plate for Suzie Wong.
1993		F.L. Smith Sodom’s Second Coming 92: This bar was not only a ‘girlie bar’ but a ’rent-boy bar’ as well. The idea was not simply girls available for heterosexuals and young men for homosexuals, but everybody for everybody.
1999		Sun. Tel. Mag. 12 Dec. 16: A strip of beer joints and girlie bars.
2018		‘Aidan Truhen’ Price You Pay 12: Now they pay for a lot of coke and go to girly bars.

(orig. US) a pin-up magazine.

1942		Brooklyn Dly Eagle (NY) 28 July 5/8: The government has clamped down ongirlie magazines showing too much legs in photos.
1945		W. Winchell On Broadway 28 Jan. [synd. col.] Publishers [...] will use their allotment of paper to start several new girlie mags.
1949		Newsweek 34 50/2: One longtime girlie-book editor fondly patted a stack of pictures and smiled nostalgically.
1950		Time 26 June 71: Liberty [...] was being sold to ‘one of those awful girlie books’.
1955		N.Y. Times 19 June 40: Advertisements in ‘girly’ magazines.
1961		Mad mag. Dec. 18: My father keeps sneaking girlie books into work.
1964		Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 15: Much public hue and cry has been raised about the ‘girlie’ magazines draped across newsstands.
1965		Dly Indep. Jrnl (San Rafael, CA) 9 Oct. 43/3: The old horror comic mags that were verboten for Junior before they were pushed off the newsstand shelves by girlie rags.
1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 53: If a girlie book was all that was left as a document of this generation.
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 12: Wilbur went back to the bathroom with his girlie magazine and satisfied himself.
1980		Detroit Free Press 7 Dec. 29/1: [TV listings] (42) House Calls: ‘Nude Girl in Town’. Nurtse is canned for baring her all in a ‘girlie’ rag.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 125: Some prisoners have their cells plastered with girlie pictures to help their sexual fantasies.
1986		F. Pitt-Kethley Sky Ray Lolly 55: Girlie Mags.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 150: These grumps gulped coffee, [...] pawed through girlie rags and sat out the death march of the minute hand.
1999		Guardian Rev. 17 July 7: He’d never bought a girlie magazine before.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 122: Merch sat wheezing behind his desk, thumbing through a girly mag.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] He’d been a journo for the girly magazine Picture.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 36: One of Flocko’s soldiers comes up and hands ther guy a girlie magazine.

(US) a young man who is popular with girls.

1901

G. Ade in Times (Richmond, VA) 17 Nov. 18/5: In this same Town there was a Boy who was Aces and Eights with the Girls. At every Opportunity the Men would get in a few mean Hooks on the girlie-Boy and the young women would [...] say they didnt care, he was awful Nice, so there!

(US) peepshow film projectors showing pornographic loops.

1953

‘John Eagle’ Hoodlums (2021) 105: The girlie machines were in back [...] machines that showed the small dime and nickel movies.

(orig. US) a strip show, or show which features unclothed or semi-clothed women.

1908		Leavenworth Times (KS) 29 Sept. 4/3: ‘The Imperials Abroad’, [...] composed mostly of women and heralded as a ‘girlie show’, played to a packed house of males at the Orpheum. There were some shapely young women .
1920		Mag. of Business 37 486/1: Just the same sort of thing as the tired business man and the girlie-girlie show.
1923		M. & K. Nicolson Honor Bright 9: (Reading aloud) ‘Snap It Up! Girlie Show!’ (More slowly) ‘An Eye-blinding Array of Seventy Captivatin’ Cooties.’ God forgi'e me! Michael. Cooties! (Looks.) No: ’tis not cooties — ’tis cutiesl!
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 30: leg-show. Refined dancing and near-singing girlie show, patronized by successful bald-heads.
1943		(ref. to 1930) Amer. Mag. 135 115: He [i.e. Bud Abbott] was taking tickets at the Empire Theater in Brooklyn in 1930 when Costello was booked in to enliven a girlie show called Legs and Laughter.
1956		Preview Film Album 43/1: After the match at Wembley, the men of Barfield visited a girlie-girlie show at a certain London theatre which specialises in such entertainment for gentlemen visiting the big city on their own.
1960		R. Barber Night They Raided Minsky’s 98: We can’t put a girlie show in the Garden. On the Bowery, O.K. But not Houston Street. We’re a family house.
1972		(con. 1930s) Algren ‘The Last Carousel’ from Playboy in Texas Stories (1995) 138: Stick around for the girlie show.
1982		S. Gray In Search of the Monkey Girl 62: I said, ‘Look, Randy, I think I'm going to go to the girlie show tonight.’ He said, ‘No, you can't do that.’ And I said, ‘Why? This is getting spicy. What do you mean I can't go to the girlie show?’.
1992		L. Lee All that Glitters 65: In my ignorance, I’d not realised that the new ‘girlie’ show at the Nell Gwynne, was to be a ‘strip show’.
2001		J. Baker Shooting in the Dark (2002) 62: He’d gone with some mates to a girlie show.

(US) in sexual orientation, lesbian.

2005

S. Franklin Streets of N.Y. 29: This girl asked me if I was ‘strictly dickly or girly pearly.’ Before I jumped on her, I asked her to clarify her question. She said it meant just what I figured, if I liked boys or girls.