Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a term of address; used between men there is an implication of effeminacy.

1828		F.F.Cooper Elbow-Shakers! I iv: Nay, cheer up duckey, pray don’t cry so!
1828		‘A Flat Enlightened’ Life in the West I 285: ‘I know, ducky, you won’t mind my asking’.
1838		‘The Devil To Pay’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 44: This is my sugar stick, / So do not cut your luckey, / I’ve come to do the trick, / For you, my dearest ducky.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 227: Dear Ducky Darling.
1842		Flash (NY) 4 Sept. n.p.: You dear little ducky you.
1859		H. Kingsley Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 96: I’ve left you ten thousand pounds in my will, ducky. Good-bye.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 146: ‘What a darling!’ ‘What a dear love!’ ‘What is your name, ducky?’.
1873		W.H. Thomes Bushrangers 291: Me and the lass has been up all night, and ve vants a little rest. Don’t ve, ducky?
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 56: Dearest Gussy, darling, duckey, / I am weary of the strife!
1884		Kipling Civil and Military Gazette 21 June in Pinney (1987) 44: It were best to leave you, ducky, / Rough on you, but best for me.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Dec. 2/4: ‘You will go riding with my husband, will you? ' shouted Mrs. McCarty [...] ‘I’ll ducky you’.
1892		Kipling ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 152: ’E’s a daisy, ’e’s a ducky, ’e’s a lamb!
1896		Albert Chevalier ‘Is Mind’s a Puffick Blank!’ 🎵 ’E called ’er ‘ducky darlin’,’ an’ she used ter call ’im ‘dear’.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 May 11/2: Re [his...] assertion that prostitution has nothing to do with sweating, present writer knows more than one young woman who started saying ‘Duckie!’ to the night air all on account of low screw and general desperation.
1901		T. & G. LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Come Along, Let’s Make Up 🎵 You’re a monster, sir, don’t ‘ducky’ me.
1903		T.W.H. Crosland ‘M.C.’ in Five Notions 21: We used to butter De Lara once, / We all went mad on De Lara once / (Once, my ducky, an’ only once).
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 85: I am going to hire her for my maid, ducky.
1914		Joyce ‘Grace’ Dubliners (1956) 159: And have you nothing for me, duckie?
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 144: Not a word will I say, ducky.
1922		N.Y. Herald 26 Feb. n.p.: [cartoon caption] ‘We’ll have a fine chance to meet the real society.’ ‘I hope they won’t try to vamp my duckyboy’.
1926		S. O’Casey Plough and the Stars Act II: Oh, little duckey, oh, shy little duckey!
1928		T.W.H. Crosland ‘Speed’ in Last Poems 81: Eftsoons he overheard Brown say / To Mrs. Brown, ‘Take heed, / The one big thing in motor-cars / Is speed, my duckie, speed!’.
1936		W. Holtby South Riding (1988) 223: Now then, ducky.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 108: Everybody danced around everybody else [...] mincing ‘Oh, Hurrah, Duckie, Hurrah, Hurrah!’.
1945		(con. 1941) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 248: She held the baby to her breast [...] ‘All right, ducky,’ she said.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 44: Look, ducky, you’re about to have the best bet ever.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 27: How’d you get on with Mr Charlton, duckie?
1966		Took & Feldman Round the Horne 16 Mar. [BBC radio] kh: You certainly go in for lurid covers. kw: Got to ducky. That’s what sells books.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 64: What an absolutely thrilling life you do lead, ducky.
1991		J. Osborne Déjàvu Act I: Please, duckie, pass it over here.
1999		M. Coward in Verbatim 24:2 n.p.: I suspect (though it is nothing stronger than a suspicion) that this specifically camp use of butch, along with the term of endearment ducky, may have entered the general consciousness as a direct result of RTH.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 162: All the best, Ducky, from all the boys in the George.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 292/1: ducky, duckie term of address, used in a similar way to dear.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 172: ‘Kid? You like kid?’ — Oui, oui, possiblement, ducky,’ I replied.

2. (US Und.) an effeminate man.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 76: duckey An effeminate man.

3. a person.

1996

A. Close Official and Doubtful 211: Juries are rum duckies. Have their own ideas about happy ever afters. They might not be sympathetic.