Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Pat n.

[var. on Paddy n.; the two senses here, while of differing national origins, are both immigrants]

1. a generic term for an Irishman; also as a term of address or nickname.

[UK] ‘The Irish Schoolmaster’ in Banquet of Thalia 7: To booze away, Old Pat would say, / And the devil take to-morrow.
[UK] ‘The Irish Angler’ in Sporting Mag. Dec. I 149/1: A smart show’r of rain falling, Pat, in a jiffey, / Crept under the arch of a bridge.
[UK]Sporting Mag. Oct. XVII 39/1: ‘Och then,’ says Pat, [...] ‘hang away, Mr. O’Mullihane!’.
[UK]G. Colman Yngr ‘The Lady of the Wreck’ in Poetical Vagaries 60: That’s a Potato, plain— / Long may your root every Irishman know! / Pats have long stuck to it.
[Ire]‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 62: He made proper allowances for the whiskeyfied temper of honest Pat.
[UK]Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 23 June 3/2: Well done, Pat, you shall have two murphies instead of one.
[Aus]Sydney Gaz. 15 Oct. 4/1: [T]he vulgar slang of pats and shillelaghs in song and fame which possess lrish wit.
[US]J.B. Skillman N.Y. Police Reports 30: A Jonathan and a Pat declared war, one against the other.
[US]W. Dunlap Memoirs of a Water Drinker I 33: Take Pat from the influence of the bad [...] give him a fair chance in the race, he will out-strip the best and proudest of Europe.
[Ire] in Dublin Comic Songster 8: [song title] I Come From The Land Of Pats And Pittatees.
[US]Boston Blade 10 June n.p.: That drunken pat who was going to whip that woman.
[US]W.K. Northall Life and Recollections of Yankee Hill 197: So saying, the old lady put another [quarter] down upon the one she had just received from Pat. The Irishman put both into his pocket.
[US] ‘Paddy’s Chapter on Pockets’ in Donnybrook-Fair Comic Songster 26: Tit for tat, English girls, the Pats all adore you.
[UK]Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 24 June 4/1: Pat, who is ready at a moment’s notice shoot any number of landlords, objects altogether to the ‘potting’ of prelates.
[US]Harry Hunter ‘I’m a Ship Without a Rudder’ 🎵 I’m a Judge without a wig, / I’m a Pat without a pig.
[US]R.C. Hartranft Journal of Solomon Sidesplitter 17: ‘Can we have no sixpences, my jewel,’ said Pat.
[Aus]Dead Bird (Sydney) 16 Nov. 2/3: ‘Faith, now, that’s something dicentlike,’ said Pat, putting down the coin, satisfied and highly pleased.
[UK]Sporting Times 1 Mar. 1/5: Ballyhooly’s Rules of Football have proved a great success in Ireland. [...] He met a countryman carrying a small basket. ‘Where are you coming from, Pat?’.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Oct. 25/2: Glasgow Evening News publishes figures tending to show that the alleged Anglo-Saxon soldier has either wonderful luck or a good deal more discretion than Sandy or Pat.
[US]Day Book (Chicago) 21 Nov. 16/2: Judge- Pat, I didn’t think you would hit a little man like that. Pat- Suppose he called you an irish slob?
[UK]Dagger (London) Dec. I 3/3: For some time Pat had been out of work, and he couldn’t get a job anywhere.
[UK](con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 140: ’Ere we are, ’ere we are, ’ere we are again, / Pat and Mac, and Tommy and Jack, and Joe!
[US]B. Traven Death Ship 236: A limey, a cockney, or a Pat.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[UK]K. Amis letter 18 June in Leader (2000) 285: I suppose it’s just hard to credit that any sane person should voluntarily opt for the Pats.
[US]L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 98: Pat and Abie and Rastus outside of Saint Peter’s gate all listening to those angels harping in stereotype.
[UK]J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 295: Angus knows I’m Irish – he knows the lads call me Pat – but he calls me Jock.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 280: Other generics include: [...] Pat, another Irishman.

2. (Aus.) a Chinese person.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Feb. 24/4: Then came a police raid, and the two combined convinced John, or, as he is becoming more generally known, Pat, that Chinatown was played out.
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 16 May 4/1: My worldly wealth, in the great big city, was a trey-bit. With that I bought five large apples off a pat (Chinaman) .

3. (Irish und.) as Pat’s, St Patrick’s Institution, an Irish equivalent of Borstal.

[Ire]P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] The Big Movie Night was one of the few things that made the teenage years we spent in Pat’s bearable.

In compounds

Patland (n.)

1. Ireland.

[UK]J. Wight More Mornings at Bow Street 5: Mr. Connelly is a native of Patland.
H. Fuller North and South 286: Tens of thousands of these benighted and bigoted sons of Patland have been led to enlist in the crusade against the South.
‘Quid’ [? R.A. Fitzgerald] Jerks in from Short-Leg 56: We should adopt the favorite method in vogue in Patland, and answer them both with a series of questions.
‘Humbug, a “Sankey”-monious tune played in a “Moody” spirit’ [tract] 1: Then, over to Patland, and shortly in Belfast.
[US]Monroe City Democrat (MO) 5 Dec. 6/5: ‘Solomon Eckhardstein, tell us why [...] you are wearing a green ribbon?’ ‘Because, ma’am, Patland Mike and Denny said they’d bust me snoot if I didn’t’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

F. Reynolds A Playwright’s Adventures 277: [...] not only dunned by publicans, dressmakers, and others [...] but he was supplicated by numbers of her low, needy, Patland relatives.
[UK]Northern Whig 23 Feb. 3/6: Northern competitors performed with every credit to their clubs in the tenth Patland cup [motorcycle] trial, held in Dublin mountains.
Patlander (n.)

an Irish person; also attrib.

[UK]Sporting Mag. Aug. 270/1: Third Battle was between Stockman and a new Patlander, of the name of Cavannah, for twenty sovereigns a side. During the first twelve rounds of the fight, the kid nobbed poor Pat with the utmost ease and indifference. Paddy, determined nopt to be denied, then got a turn.
[UK]Good-Fellow’s Calendar 207: This talented Patlander being one evening loudly called on [...] for their favourite song of ‘the Sprig of Shilelagh’.
[UK]Egan Bk of Sports 45: ‘By de powers of Moll Kelly,’ said a Patlander,‘do dat again for me, Ned.’.
[UK]Satirist (London) 20 Jan. 446/2: That Patlander ape, O’Jaw-man [...] we perceive, by the Express, Dublin paper, has been figuring away in a law court.
[UK]Bell’s Life in London 15 Mar. 15/2: Being obliged to pay [...] caused a great regret in the bosom of the Patlander!
[US]T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 270: Let’s see whether it’s John Bull or Patlander that’s to blame.
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Oct. 3/2: Patrick Hely, a strong, square-shouldered Patlander.
[US]G.W. Harris ‘A Snake-Bit Irishman’ Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) XV Jan. in Inge (1967) 58: The next evening the Patlander was seen traveling at a mighty rate through Knoxville.
[UK]‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 16 Mar. 4/1: I heerd from ther Patlanders good akkounts of Brother to Chanticleer and Sister to Ballinkeele, a Derby oss and a Oaks mare, both ov whom thay say are klippers.
[US]T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws I 279: Your panes of glass in your winders are all shingles, as the Patlanders say.
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 14 Oct. 3/2: Latterly they had as a tenant a Pat-lander, named Peter Kelly.
[US]A.C. Coxe Impressions of England 96: He then went on with Irish volubility, and the no less characteristic accent of the Patlander, to belabor Lord John’s bill.
Bunyip Gawler, SA) 5 Sept. 4/3: [W]hen I was a juvenile Patlander, our vernacular for a blow was a ‘lick’.
[US]H.L. Williams Joaquin 9: ‘Smother him, the bastely Mixican,’ said a Patlander.
P. Gillmore Prairie Farms and Prairie Folk 184: The little hot-headed, impulsive, but generous Patlander was a great favourite.
[US]Salt Lake Herald (UT) 19 Apr. 8/3: Queen Victoria has lost her favorite [...] John Brown, could she do better than command [...] in his place, a genuine Patlander?
[UK]Mirror of Life 17 Aug. 14/1: Every trueborn Patlander wishes to give Peter a shake of the hand.
[UK]C.J.C. Hyne Adventures of Captain Kettle 191: He’s some sort of a big bug [...] inquiring into the organization of those Pat-lander rebels.
[UK]Gem 16 Mar. 3: It doesn’t need a Scotland Yard detective to tell me you’re a Patlander.
[US]N.Y. Tribune 19 Nov. 12/7: Crosbie Garstin [...] known to ‘Punch’ readers as ‘Patlander’.
[US]Berrey & Van Den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
pat wagon (n.) (also patty wagon) [negative stereotyping]

(US) a vehicle in which prisoners are conveyed to a police station (cf. paddy wagon under Paddy n.).

[US]N.Y. World in Fleming Unforgettable Season (1981) 12 2: It would be my misfortune to get to the scene of trouble just as the ‘pat’ wagon pulled up.
[US]C.R. Shaw Jack-Roller 72: They called the police, and I was loaded into a ‘patty wagon’.

In exclamations