Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. unpleasant, dirty, disgusting.

1922		Joyce Ulysses 6: How are the secondhand breeks? – They fit well enough, Stephen answered. [...] – The mockery of it, he said contentedly, secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off.
1926		E. Walrond Tropic Death (1972) 145: A mulatto cane cutter, poxy progentitor of twenty-one husky mule driving sons.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 221: ‘An’ here I am, about to be dessicayted by a lot o’ stinkin’ poxy Arabs’.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 149: Don’t you call my bloke boss-eyed – you poxy mare!
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 270: Call the poxy old bastard ‘your Worship’.
1945		‘Worribee Madge’ in Mess Songs & Rhymes of the RAAF 36: She’s lousy, she’s poxy, she lives on the street.
1958		D. Reeve Smoke in the Lanes 42: Iffen you don’t shut yer bloody foxin’ mouth I’ll shut it fer you, you foxin’ bastard! Why you’m wusser’n a poxy German!
1969		The Who ‘Christmas’ 🎵 on Tommy [album] Playing poxy pinball.
1974		J. Lahr Hot to Trot 181: You cheap two-bit trick! You poxy whore!
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 8: If ya gunna be poxy and not drink with ya old mates, all right.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 59: Poxy fuckin’ tealeafing bastards.
2002		J. Franzen Corrections 133: A poxy interlocking constellation of scar tissue extended from his armpit down the inside of his arm to his elbow.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 153: The nosy-beaked cunt soon switches his miserable, budgerigar eyes back onto the poxy road.
2018		G. Gilmore Class Act [ebook] Sitting in Davie’s poxy car.

2. piffling; second-rate.

1950		M. Peake Gormenghast 149: Every poxy sunrise of the year, eh, that you burst out of the decent darkness in that plucked way?
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class I xv: It’s a bit much o’ Sackstead sending me twenty million miles [...] to bandy words wi’ a poxy moon-looney who thinks he’s me.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 252: Worse criminals than drunk drivers are turned loose in this poxy country!
1985		‘Thommo’ Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 101: POXY — A show or gig that didn’t turn out to be as good a your mates said it was, or anything or anyone that you don’t like.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 194: Two hundred poxy quid!
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 7: Lee Biggs tried a poxy rugby tackle on me.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] A poxy movie where some middle-class ponce restores a gorgeous manor in Tuscany.
2021		Breen & Conlon Hitmen 226: ‘Mark can’t drive. Poxy driver, he is’.