Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also pigstail) a roll of coarse tobacco [resemblance].

1688		R. Holme Armoury III xxii (Roxb.) 274/1: Pig taile, is a very small wreath or roll tobacco.
a.1689		Fingallian Travesty (2013) 190: A Pound of Pigs-Tail in his Bag.
1740		Swift Will in Works (1745) VIII 384: I bequeath to Mr. John Grattan [...] my silver box [...] in which I desire the said John to keep the tobacco he usually cheweth, called pigtail .
1760		H. Walpole 7 May in Letters III (1891) 310: He replied [...] ‘Then I must be content with this,’ and took some pigtail tobacco out of his pocket.
1776		Bath Chron. 22 May 1/2: Rather than snuff-taking should prevail among the Ladies I could wish it were the Fashion for them to [...] have their Nostrils bored through as well as their Ears, and, instead of Jewels, to bear Rolls of Pigtail bobbing over their upper Lips.
1815		‘British Sailor’ Sailor’s Vocal Repository 3: She had put me in such a flusteration [...] I handed her my ’bacco box, when she told me she never chaw’d pigtail.
1825		‘Young Ben, the Carpenter, & Sally Brown’ Universal Songster I 11: His head was turned, and so he chewed / His pigtail till he died.
1834		Sydney Monitor 8 Apr. 4/4: . It was thought a harmless thing when Jack allowed his pigtail to be cut off; but what if it should lead to his being cut off from pigtail? He will next eschew chewing. Will he get the ‘quo pro quid?’.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Mar. 22 1/3: Tom’s profession [...] is that of a tobacconist [...] he used to press pigtail in a certain shop.
1838		‘The Female Tobacconist’ Rambler’s Flash Songster 15: As for your pig-tail, it always must fail, / If of my best shagg you are shy.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 183: I’ll bet you a pound of the best Varginy pigtail.
1843		Devizes & Wilts Gaz. 20 July 4/6: ‘Pray, Mr Peter, do you ever smoke?’ — ‘No, I generally chaws [...] I likes a bit of pigtail sometimes’.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes II 117: Two of them I saw canvassing the respective qualities of negrohead, pigtail, and shag.
1853		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Sept. 55/2: It will [...] be conceed that nigger-head is not so very far from pig-tail.
a.1860		‘Oh, Don’t I Love my Billy’ in Henderson Victorian Street Ballads (1937) 62: He’s chawing quids, and pig-tail smoking.
1871		E. Eggleston Hoosier School-Master (1892) 73: Jack, having bit off an ounce of ‘pigtail,’ returned the plug to his pocket.
1876		J. Miller First Fam’lies in the Sierras 44: A Missourian who lay [...] smoking the pipe of ‘pigtail’.
1886		Sporting Times 20 Mar. 3/5: Seriously debating whether he should pin his faith on shag [or] go ‘the whole hog or none’ on pigtail.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 116: I think [...] that I could get you a pound — or even two — of Pig-tail (tobacco).
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 81: I’ll sell you this lovely bird [...] for eight ounces of pig-tail (twist tobacco).

2. (also pigswig) an old man [a ref. to the fact that some old men still wore their hair in a pigtail, an 18C affectation].

1840		H. Cockton Valentine Vox 357: ‘Well done old pigswig!’ cried Horace, giving the Doctor a patronising pat on the shoulder.
1841		S. Bamford Life of a Radical I 21: Fitton, had, in a speech at a public meeting, designated a certain class in Manchester, ‘The Pig-tail Gentry’.
1857		London Standard 16 Sept. 7/2: He was reduced to beggary. Our old ‘Pigtail’ could not see the justice of this proceeding.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 196/2: Pigtail (Street, obsolete about 1840). An old man, from the ancients clinging to the 18th century mode of wearing the hair.

3. the penis.

1865

‘The Female Tobacconist’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 15: As for your pig-tail, it all always must fail, / If of my best shagg you are shy.

4. (Aus.) a Chinese immigrant, mainly to Australia [the wearing of pigtails by the Chinese].

1823		Oxford Jrnl 11 Oct. 4/3: Stumpy, a man with a wooden leg, Cowskin, Spindleshanks, Cockeye, Pig-tail and Yellow-belly were severally involked.
[1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 Aug. 3/2: One of the twist-tail proprietary named Isau Iu Ho].
1858		‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 169: There’s no good to be done by a whitefellow where those thundering pig-tails are.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 13/1: Instead of ‘striking’ at once, as the free-born Briton, the hot-blooded ‘Irishy,’ or the hard-headed Scot would do, the ‘pig-tails’ simply cut a couple of inches off each of their shovels over night.
1886		Cornhill Mag. July 55: Sweetmeats [...] being great favourites with the ‘pigtails’ .
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Aug. 24/4: On one occasion, owing to a typhoon and battened hatches, out of a cargo of 800, only 270 pigtails survived the seven-days’ voyage. The coolies were counted-in like bags of rice by an oleaginous Chow at the hatchway.
1907		N.Z. Truth 16 Mar. 5/3: The principal pigtail in the kitchen, i.e. the chef, is actually alleged to have been at the greasy game for fourteen years .
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Dec. 48/3: Never before did we know Bill to have Chinese acquaintances. / ‘The cow that associates with a pigtail,’ Crawley ripped out disgustedly, ‘is no friend of mine.’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 94: We run into a mob of Chinks coming out of a fan-tan joint. We cut off the pigtails and didn’t they perform.

5. (US Und., also John Pigtail, Johnny Pigtail) a Chinese man [the wearing of pigtails by the Chinese].

1858		N. Wales Chron. 24 Apr. 4/6: Oh! the poor pigtail! poor Governor Yeh! To think how he look’d when the Blue-jackets seiz’d him.
1870		Punchinello I 350: The American Chinese General Ward [...] has been postmortuarily brevetted to the rank of a ‘major god,’ and is now regularly worshipped as such by John Pigtail.
1883		Anderson Intelligencer (SC) 1 Mar. 1/5: There are now in Augusta about a score of Chinamen [...] John has come to stay. To see a squad of pigtails [...] is growing to be a familar thing.
1883		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 15 Sept. 8/5: Heads I win, tails you lose, ‘Johnny Pigtail’ might say.
1885		C.A. Siringo Texas Cow Boy (1950) 166: ‘Pig-tails’ have shunned Toyah ever since.
1886		Cornhill Mag. July 55: Sweetmeats ... being great favourites with the ‘pigtails’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1892		Sedalia Wkly Bazoo (MO) 12 Apr. 2/2: Piogtails not Wanted. The Chinese Exclusion Bill Passes the House.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 13 May. 4/5: Hanging is, perhaps, the most popular form of suicide amongst the pig-tails, probably because it is the cheapest.
1896		Regiment 16 May 100/1: Some British troops in China came suddenly upon a body of Tartars [...] One gallant officer [...] engaged a Tartar with his fists [...] when one of the soldiers came up and gave the ‘Pig-tail’ his coup de grace with a bayonet.
1903		Bisbee Dly Rev. (AZ) 5 Dec. 1/5: The ‘pigtails’ of China.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1947		(con. late 19C) A. McLeod Pigtails and Gold Dust 156: No matter how crowded they [opium dens] might be there always seemed to be ‘room for one more pigtail’.

6. attrib. use of sense 5; thus generic for Chinese, e.g. pigtail brigade, pigtail land, pigtail party.

1877		Sun (NY) 22 June 2/2: Gov. Ames was deaf to the appeals of the pigtail brigade [...] The pigtail chiefs say that this law shows a retrogression of public sentiment in regard to pigtail reform.
1889		Hants. Teleg. 27 July 12/7: Pigtail Peculiarities. When a Chinaman desires a visitor to dine [etc.].
1895		Coconino Wkly Sun (Flagstaff, AZ) 31 Jan. 7/4: Let us bring good spring water to the health of the pigtail population.
1899		Daily News 25 Oct. 2/1: Mr. Yerburgh, the leader of what was known last Session as ‘the Pigtail Party’ in the House of Commons, is contemplating a journey to China.
1906		Manchester Courier 14 Mar. 10/4: Thias Government of ‘terminological inexactitudes’ should be christened ‘The Pigtail Government’.
1914		Nottingham Eve. Post 222 Jan. 3/4: Pig-tail Riots [...] The Chinese Revolution sent waves of feeling and contention through the Celestial world.
1924		E.G. Murphy ‘Nickin’ In’ Dryblower’s Verses 63: Spiking many a pig-tailed Chow / With a programme and a pin.