Green’s Dictionary of Slang

luxurious, expensive, stylish, thus also snobbish.

1866		Wild Boys of London I 222/2: The pampered dignity of Gorgeous was lowered. [...] When the plushy hero made that resolution he knew but little of our friend.
1900		Marvel 21 Dec. 15: Wen she wos togged up wiv er plush frok an big at wiv scarlet fevvers.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 24: I’ll be there like a plush pony.
1941		Time 9 June 24/3: A Manhattan audience, looking unseasonably plushy, last week cooed and clapped its way through the revival of a cockeyed opera.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 106: Isn’t this a plush dump?
1950		W. Sansom ‘Impatience’ in Lehman Penguin New Writing No. 40 45: ‘It’s just like you, you dreary old bag,’ he would say to a blowsy old pro [...] ‘plushy as all get out’.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 140: They drive to this plush jump joint.
1960		J. Havoc Early Havoc 35: ‘You got any money?’ [...] ‘Sure [...] But I’m not spending it on any plush seat’.
1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 128: Penney had breezed into the head with his plush nose in the air.
1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 83: It was a plush life. The troops had taken over a holiday camp called Golden Sands and we led a golden life.
1980		Observer Mag. 24 Feb. 14: He once took me to lunch at a plush Mayfair joint.
1999		Guardian Rev. 16 July 3: Dennis Wheatley in the tacky plush of that preposterous, yet strangely gripping orgy scene.
2000		Observer Escape 9 Jan. 2: We anchored off the plush K Club in Antigua.