Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a Jamaican [Francis-Jackson, Official Dancehall Dict. (1995), defines this as ‘a Jamaican residing overseas’].

1984		Smiley Culture ‘Cockney Translation’ 🎵 Go tell it to your friends also your family / No matter if a English or a Yardy.
1987		D. Hebdige Cut ’n’ Mix 151: But he isn’t a rootsy Jamaican ‘yardy’ either.
1992		V. Headley Yardie 27: Recently settled yardies were numerous in this part of London.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 62: These three yardie chicks [...] Tameeka, Marcia and [...] Stephanie .

2. one of a gang of Jamaican organized criminals who specialize in purveying drugs and violence on an international level.

1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1990		D. Campbell That Was Business, This Is Personal 5: The group attracting most attention by the end of the eighties [...] were called the Yardies, a word with a Jamaican origin which became a shorthand term for a black criminal in this country.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 183: They’re fucking Yardies, man. Fucking drug-dealers and pimps.
2015		www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads Grime Terminology Guide 🌐 Yardie - Gangsters from Jamaican communities.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1998		Guardian G2 6 Aug. 10: The earlier film [...] portrayed the guns, yardie culture and competitiveness associated with a scene where bystanders fire bullets into the ceiling in appreciation of the tunes.
2000		Observer 20 Feb. 9: All the cocaine sold by Jamaican Yardie gangs in Britain is being provided by Nigerian traffickers.