Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US milit.) snack foods, occas. cigarettes, money; underlying image of the use of such snacks as a lure by child-molesters.

1919		Lima (OH) News 5 June 6/3: ‘Poggy bait’ is the pet name for candy.
1920		Trenton Eve. Times (NJ) 30 Apr. 4/3: Some Navy Slang [...] ‘Poggy bait’ is the pet name for candy or sweets.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Pogey bait, candy.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 161/1: Pogle-bait. (Scattered prisons) Candy or other small luxuries offered as inducement to degenerates.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 39: He felt in his pocket and brought out two pieces of hard candy. ‘Pogie bait?’.
1964		Current Sl. (1967) I:4 4/2: Pogy bait, n. Snack foods.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 36: pogey (or pogie) bait is candy (or any other inducement) given to a young pogue as a lure by a pedicator.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 156: He offers to suck cock or proffers an upturned fanny in exchange for [...] pogue bait (fr pogue = young rooster who gets his tail feathers plucked in prison // Parlyaree pogey // It poco = little thing, bit: the terms include all digestible items used to entice, but also extended to cigarettes and money sometimes).
1979		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Short Timers (1985) 42: We buy junk food; pogey bait.
1984		LaBarge & Holt Sweetwater Gunslinger 201 (1990) 237: Pogey Bait – candy, gum etc.
2003		(con. 1993) A. Swofford Jarhead 15: Those jarheads didn’t do shit in the Desert but sit on their asses and chow down on pogey bait.

2. attrib. use of sense 1, inferior, weak.

1959

(con. WWII) B. Cochrell Barren Beaches of Hell 41: ‘Got in a knife fight with a couple of pogey-bait Sixths.’ [...] ‘What’s the pogey-bait Sixth?’ Leeper asked. ‘Sixth Marines. No-good outfit.’.