Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a proud, vain woman.

1593		G. Harvey Pierce’s Supererogation 145: Although she [i.e Long Meg of Westminster] were a lustie bounsing rampe [...] yet she was not such a roinish rannell, or such a dissolute gillian-flurtes.
1639		J. Taylor Crabtree Lectures 72: Goe, you are a sawcy Gossip, and a Gill-flurt. I know what I have to do with my owne Husband. I will not now come to learn of you.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Gillflurt, a proud Minks.
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.: gillflurt, a proud minks, a vain capricious woman.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 37: gilflirt A proud, capricious woman.

2. (also jilt-flirt) a flirt, a tease; a prostitute (cf. flirt-gill under flirt n.).

1611		R. Cotgrave Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Gaultiere a whore, punke, drab, queane, gill flirt.
1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 40 28 Feb.–7 Mar. 320: Three new Exchange Lasses [...] to be dress’d up decently in homely plaine Apparell of the ancient English Garb, and then committed to the tuition of the Matronship of Bridewell, for the imitation of the rest of the Citty Gill Flirts.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 125: Fortunes a Whore, a meer Gillflurt.
1673		Wycherley Gentleman Dancing-Master III i: ’Tis your dainty Minx, that Jillflirt your Daughter here.
1689		Satire against Hypocrites n.p.: Gill-flurt? enrag’d, crys t’other, Why, ye dirty piece of impudence, ye ill-bred thief [N].
1695		Congreve Love for Love II i: Well, jill-flirt, you are very pert.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Gillflurt [...] a Slut or light Housewife.
1713		Guardian 26 10 Apr. n.p.: Jill-flirts.
1729		J. Gay Polly II iv: While a man is grappling with these gill-flirts, pardon the expression, Captain, he runs his reason a-ground.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1751		W. Kenrick Falstaff’s Wedding (1766) III xi: Who among gill-flirts of these days has reserv’d, like myself, the same affection for the same man for twenty years together?
1777		Garrick Country Girl II i: What, you would have her as impudent as yourself, as arrant a gilflirt, a gadder, a magpye.
1797		M.G. Lewis in Sporting Mag. June X 174/1: ‘Behold me, thou jilt-flirt! behold me,’ he cried.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 317: Off went the jill-flirt betwen the acts, to see if Arsenia wanted her.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 117: She is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.
1838		Carlisle Jrnl 28 Apr. 4/2: The lassie he chuses suld be examined as weel. She suld be nae daft Gill-flirt fit for naething but dressin’, dancin’, cardin’.
1841		Flash (NY) 17 Oct. n.p.: A lady once well known is the lowest parleius [sic] of Philadelphia infamy as jillflirt Jenny.
1892		Lichfield Mercury 3 June 6/2: Philip and his companion were profuse in their apologies, which were wasted upon the low gill-flirt.
1930		N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 253: [H]e assured himself that he was not going to make a fool of himself over a jill-flirt of Ethel’s type.