Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a successful womanizer.

1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 400: Candy kid. A lady’s man.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 24: Candy-kid – a fellow who gets the breaks; one who is lucky.

2. (US) a well-behaved, pleasant person.

1930

‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 201: Candy – Candy kid is the fellow who gets the good breaks.

3. (US) a weakling, a mother’s boy, a favoured child.

1905		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 24: (TAD’S Idea Of ‘The Boss,’ Who Thinks He Is A Boxing Wonder) Smith yer the candy kid.
1927		F.M. Thrasher Gang 216: Some of the boys of that [poor] part of the town came out yelling ‘candy kids’ and began throwing stones.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 491: After she’s been Mr. Hannen’s candy kid? The one that was going to New York and play the pyanner so they’d all be hollering for her?
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 62: John Dingbat O’Berta, the candy kid of city politics.

4. (US) a dandy, a fashionably dressed person.

1909		Guilpin & Adams ‘Oh You Candy Kid’ [song title].
1913		E.L. Warnock ‘Terms of Approbation And Eulogy’ in DN IV:i 16: candykid. A fine fellow; a showy, stylish person [...] ‘She is some candykid’.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.

5. (US) a tramp’s younger companion, usu. in a homosexual relationship.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 108: A boy who turned on a tramp was a candy kid.