nancy n.
1. the buttocks, the posterior [? joc. use of proper name].
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Bell’s Life in London 21 Feb. 3/2: When I crack his nancy / He’ll find me an ugly customer. | |
 | ‘US Army Sl. 1870s–1880s’ [compiled by R. Bunting, San Diego CA, 2001] Nancy A woman’s buttocks; she has a fine Nancy. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Great Santini (1977) 20: He refers to his penis as Mr. Cannon and her vagina as Miss Nancy. | |
| Signs of Crime 194: Nancy Buttocks. |
2. (orig. US) implying weakness or effeminacy [the female name, but note sense 1].
(a) an effeminate male homosexual.
| London Guide 75: A fellow in the [...] foot guards, whose nick name, Nancy Cooper, designates his character, [...] accused a gentleman in the Strand of a beastly offence, said to have been perpetrated in St. James’s Park. | |
| Living Picture of London 159: A soldier [...] whose nickname Nancy Cooper designated his character [...] was hanged at Newgate-door for accusing a certain gentleman, in the Strand of a beastly offence, said to have been committed in St. James’s Park. | |
| N.Y. State Legal Report Special Committee [...] to Investigate Public Offices (1900) V 1382: Q. Who did you convict? A. All the Nancys and fairies that were there. Q. What do you mean by that male prostitutes, male prostitutes? A. Degenerates, yes [GS]. | |
| Northern Times 14 Sept. 4/4: [of a young man en travesti] Nancy (there is no other name for him) sat squeezed into that corner of the chaise. | |
| Life In Sing Sing 251: Nancy. Effeminate man. | |
| Death Ship 49: Hey, submarine admiral, Nancy of the gobs. Tell us real sailors who won the war. | |
| ‘The Family’ in (1979) 85: ’Twas even less to the family’s fancy / When Lord De Vere became a nancy. | |
| Troubling of a Star 193: Anybody plays a guitar’s a goddamned nancy. | |
| Limericks 96: Though a bit of a nancy /He did like to fancy / Himself in the dominant role. | |
| (con. WWII) Marines! 65: Regular Nancy, you are, always fancying yer pretty ’air like a bloomin’ movie queen. | |
| New Yorker 15 July 64: The News broadened its views on the subject only to the extent of offering its readers a larger selection of sobriquets: ‘Fairies, nancies, swishes, fags, lezzes’. | |
| (con. 1920s) Liza’s England (1996) 97: High time he stopped looking like a lass. You don’t want to make a Nancy of him, do you? | |
| Lingo 115: There seems to have been no shortage of terms used either by homosexuals themselves and/or by non-homosexuals, such as miss nancy (surviving in Lingo as nancy or nancy boy). | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | (con. 1980s) Skagboys 332: Any hands-on involvement in a skrimish wi a short-arse nancy can only diminish their standing. | |
| Last Kind Words 5: The nancies on C-Block could open up a salon in East Hampton and make a mint off Long Island’s wealthy blue-haired biddies. | |
| Times Sat. Review 22 Oct. 🌐 He turned into the kind of person bold enough to say to any forward lass [...] ‘Listen. We’re nancies. Big tits mean nothing to us’. | |
| Man-Eating Typewriter 88: ‘[Y]ou insolent little nancy!’. |
(b) an effeminate or weak-willed person.
| Yarns of Bucko Mate 81: Though a perfect gentleman, he was no ‘Nancy,’ and would have made a first-class officer. | |
| Shipbuilders (1954) 183: So that was her game, was it: dirty stuff with that English nancy – if he wasn’t just a lousy yid? | |
| Saved Scene viii: Lot a lies an’ pictures a nancies. | |
| ‘To Hull and Back’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You’re not really letting your boat out to them southern nancies are you? | |
| Guardian 10 July 1: Mr Dobson said he had no time for the ‘fancy Nancies’. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] I was turning into a sissy, a nancy, a goddam girl. Toughen the fuck up. |
3. (US) constr. in pl. with the, ‘the jitters’.
| Donaldsville Chief (LA) 26 Sept. 1/6: Aw you’re enough to give any one the nancys. Do you know what I think of you Bunion? I think that you’re a reasl live dude, now there! |
4. (S.Afr. gay) nothing.
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Gayle. |
In derivatives
effeminate, acting in a homosexual manner.
| Inter Ocean (Chicago) 16 Feb. 17/2: The coxcombs of this epoch [...] corseted and powdered and nancified looking. | |
| Davenport Morn. Star (IL) 23 June 5/7: The people speak right out aloud / [...] / They don’t act Nancified or proud / In great Chicago town. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 17 July 1/1: John Cosgrove’s Cockney convict at His Majesty’s was too nancified. | |
| Early Life Sylvia Scarlett 123: If you can let that nancified milksop mess you about, you can put up with me. | |
| Era (London) 7 Feb. 6/3: Frank Pettingel, the begetter of much humour as a nancified player of women’s parts running to girth. | |
| Cairns Post (Qld) 31 Oct. 8/5: She describes Mr. [Anthony] Eden as a ‘nancified nonentity,’ ‘a sinister, self-worshipping simpleton’ and ‘this prince of ‘ineffectuals’. | |
| Tatler 2 Apr. 29/1: [Clubs] segregate the sexes and seek to turn men into monks, sterile, stupid, but self-sufficient, egregious goons stuffed with ‘nancified’ notions of good form. | |
| Birmingham Dly Gaz. 19 Jan. 5/3: [W]hen they hear an inadequate voice talking about a book or a writer they immediately conclude that all ‘highbrows’ talk in that ‘nancified’ way. | |
| May this House be Safe from Tigers 171: [...] the nancified contortions of my early Christian fathers. | |
| ‘Nostalgia Unlimited’ in Red Passion Issue 13, Nov. 🌐 Joey, of course, didn’t believe in such over-the-top, nancified preening, but his hair almost covered his ears for a short time. | |
| ‘United Kingdom Report’ Jan. IRAAP.com 🌐 They were good-looking guys (even if their hair was a bit nancified and long enough to raise the ire of a few mid-western good ol’ boys). |
effeminately.
| Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1962) 17: A youth of twenty, cherry-lipped, with gilded hair, tripped Nancifully in. |
effeminacy.
| Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1962) 18: A nice-looking boy, though, for all his Nancitude. |
In exclamations
go to hell!
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 123: ‘Nancy, ask my’ a very vulgar recommendation, seeing that it is a mute. | |
| Western Times 18 Oct. 6/3: [I] have been six weeks in prison and a night and a day in the clink, and if that is not enough for taking bit of cheese for lunch, you may ask my Nancy. |