Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. arrogant, haughty, snobbish, conceited.

1923		Fletcher Henderson [title] Dicty Blues.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 46: White folks so dickty and high-and-mighty, youse think they nevah oncet naked and thim feets nevah touch ground.
1932		C. McKay Gingertown 10: I make as much working ’longshore as any dikty nigger in Harlem.
1935		E. Freeman ‘The Whirling Hub’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 30 Mar. 15/1: The smashed engagement of a certain lass of night life fame and a dicty Depression Hill lad.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1006: These dickty jigs round here tries to smile.
a.1948		(con. early 1930s) C. McKay Harlem Glory (1990) 77: A new soul from the upper realms of biggity and dicty iniquity of Harlem.
1957		R.S. Gold ‘Vernacular of the Jazz World’ in AS XXXII:4 277: dicty. Snobbish.
1961		R.A. Norton Through Beatnik Eyeballs 14: I not going to play dicty like I higher up the ladder.
1992		D. Pinckney High Cotton (1993) 7: More than one quiet church went to extraordinary lengths to rid itself of the ‘dicty spade’ who wore his learning on his sleeve.

2. elegant, high-class, sophisticated.

1924		Rosa Henderson ‘The Basement Blues’ 🎵 He don’t, he can’t / Hang round with dicty cats.
1929		T. Gordon Born to Be (1975) 99: He told me he was a dickty spade, and that all dickty spades loathed the word NIGGAH.
1931		N. Van Patten ‘Vocabulary of the American Negro’ in AS VII:1 28: dickty. M. adj. Swell, in the slang sense.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 23 July 11/1: The chick really has a dicty pair of pipes.
1944		Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 254: dicty (adj.): high-class, nifty, smart.
a.1948		(con. early 1930s) C. McKay Harlem Glory (1990) 85: I used to read a lot about you [...] and the dicty crowd in the Harlem Nugget.
1953		S.J. Perelman letter 13 Dec. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 146: The only half-way decent meal I had was [...] in a dickty Italian place, all rose boudoir lamps and waiters in tails, in Wardour Street.
1958		Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 89: He was seventeen and dicty-looking with his good hair and light complexion.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 109: He was seventeen and ‘dicty-looking’ and Bertha would have done anything he wanted.
1971		(con. 1920s) G.M. Foster Pops Foster 43: John Robichaux got most of the dicty jobs.

3. of clothes, elegant, chic, smart.

1926

Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 285: dicty: swell, in the slang sense of the word.