Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. Jewish.

1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 128: They and their friends resorted to a shop in Meakin Street, kept by an ‘ikey’ tailor.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Feb. 24/2: One of the Ikey fraternity has offered to stake £200 that Otto licks any ten-stoner on the continent. Bald-patched old Jim Barron wants a go but he’d be ‘old pie’ as ‘Cocker’ Tweedie has it.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 41: You can put it up your freckle if you don’t like it, you ikey bastard.

2. extraordinary, showy.

1900		Illus. Police News 8 Sept. 3/3: Defendant. Well, they [i.e. some old clothes] were an ikey lot. Now do look at the beauties.
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 72: You got [...] a ikey coat.
1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 226: ‘But, Gina, duckie, we can’t afford to be ikey.’ ‘Ikey?’ snapped Gina. ‘Who’s going to be ikey, my lamb. It isn’t a question of affordable or being ikey. It’s a question of being comfortable.’.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 133: They were very smartly dressed, in fact much too smartly, as I told them [...] ‘You ought to get twelve months for going down a place like Lewisham in such “ikey” clothes.’.

3. artful, smart, cunning; cit. 1892 Farmer glosses the term as ‘funny’ but the inference is of stereotypical Jewish ‘cunning’.

1866		Wild Boys of London I 83/1: ‘Tell you what, Sam, you ain’t half a hugly cove.’ He meant it as a compliment. [...] ‘And in them things,’ continued Jack, ‘you’ll look ikey.’ Sam was not insensible to flattery, and felt grateful.
1870		Leybourne 🎵 My name is Ikey Bill / A Whitechapel Covey am I.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1892		Chevalier ‘The Little Nipper’ 🎵 But artful ikey little ways / As makes the people sit up where we stays.
1892		‘’Arry in Venice’ Punch 27 May 88/1: Your old Country Fair Show takes a back seat when ikey young I.K.’s about.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 55: Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in the north west.
1925		S. O’Casey Shadow of a Gunman Act II: We’re a little bit too ikey now to be kidded with that sort of talk.

4. (US, also iky) impertinent, cheeky.

1842		C. Mathews Career of Puffer Hopkins 142: Then there’s you, Ikey Larkins.
1886		‘’Arry’s Spring Thoughts’ Punch 17 Apr. 185: Your ikey top-sawyers may scoff.
1892		Albert Chevalier ‘Our Little Nipper’ 🎵 Artful little ikey little ways, As makes the people sit up where we stays.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 72: I don’t want none o’ your ikey little ways. So cheese it – see! Don’t come it.
1906		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:ii 142: iky, adj. Impertinent, impudent, ‘Don’t get iky’.
1914		Bath Chron. 9 May 10/6: Mrs Braund [...] called Nellie Painter [...] a weasel; Nellie replied, ‘You need not be “ikey”; you’re only a barmaid’.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 215: iky, impertinent.

5. melodramatic, done for effect (the image of the over-emotional Jew).

1881

‘’Arry on Fashion’ Punch 10 Sept. 110/1: ’Arf ikey of course, put-up bizness, a tap as they mostly turn on.

6. (Aus.) large in quantity.

1905

Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Nov. 39/1: Tell yer what, [...] there’s yer boots. They ain’t fust-class; but we cud git a ikey lot o’ drinks fur them boots.