Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the female companion of a variety of mendicant villains; spec. a young woman, or an unattached woman, older than a dell n. (1) and younger than a mort n.¹ (1)

c.1561		Awdeley Fraternitye of Vacabondes in Viles & Furnivall (1907) 6: All which go abroade working laces and shirt stringes, they name them Doxies.
1592		Greene Quip for an Upstart Courtier G3: The pedlar [...] walketh the Countrey with his docksey.
1608		Dekker Belman of London D4: These Doxies will for good victuals or a small piece of money, prostitute there bodies to seruingmen if they can get into any conuenient corner about their maisters houses, & to ploughmen in barnes, hay-lofts or stables: they are common pick-pockets, familiars (with the baser sorts of cut-purses,) and oftentimes secret murtherers of those infants which are begotten of their bodies.
1610		Rowlands Martin Mark-all 14: A Doxie that steale and rob hedges of a few ragged clothes.
1622		Beaumont & Fletcher Beggar’s Bush II i: All your daintiest dells too / I will deflower, and take your dearest doxies.
1630		Tinker of Turvey Epistle: To All the braue Mettle-men that Trauell on the Hoofe, with a Dog, and a Doxie at’s Tayle.
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew Act II: The Bratling’s born; the Doxey’s in the Strummel, Laid by an Autum Mort of their own Crew, That served for Mid-wife.
1651		T. Randolph Hey for Honesty II iv: How shall we resist this warlike Amazon, the valiantest of all tinkers’ trulls and doxies.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 36: The males and females lay promiscuously together, it being free for any of the Fraternity to make choice of what Doxie he like best.
1672		‘A Country Dialogue’ Covent Garden Drollery 105: Oh love me then, thou pretty Doxcy.
1674		T. Duffet Empress of Morocco Prologue: As when some dogrel-monger raises Up Muse, to flatter Doxies praises. [Ibid.] Act III: Doxie! Doxie! O thou hast a tender thing!
1688		R. Holme Academy of Armory Ch. iii item 68b: Give me leave to give you the names (as in their Canting Language they call themselves) of all (or most of such) as follow the Vagabond Trade, according to their Regiments or Divisions, as [...] Doxies, Whores and Bawds.
a.1691		‘The Vagabond’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 205: My dainty Dames and Doxes.
1699		‘Prodigals Resolution’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy I 57: I’ll Court my Doxies to the sport / Of o’brave Punchinello.
1707		J. Shirley Triumph of Wit 184: The Doxies are such as are prostituted to any, and are no other than common Whores of the kind, amongst the Brotherhood, and consequently to any Person, if Advantage offers, and for the most part have the Art of Diving in to the Pockets of such Cullies as they ensnare.
1717		Hist. of the Press Yard in Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men (1719) xi: Quoth a fellow, with the most rueful appearance that any creature with two legs ever made to his doxy [...] Doll, we shall have a hot supper to-night.
1729		J. Gay Polly III v: Is Morano still with his doxy?
1732		Delightful Adventures of Honest John Cole 23: He agreed, and with his Black-o’-top Doxy return’d to London.
1741		N. Rowe ‘Horace’s Integer Vitae applied to the Rakes of Drury’ in Potent Ally 27: The Man, Dear Friend, who wears a C—m, [...] He fears no Danger from the Doxies, Laughs at their F*****, and scorns their Poxes.
1764		K. O’Hara Midas II i: He o’er looked the little Doxy, I’m the girl he means to woo.
1770		R. King Frauds of London 100: The poor deluded countryman becomes a dupe to the artful doxies.
1786		Burns The Jolly Beggars in Works (1842) 13/1: Round we wander all the day, And at night, in barn or stable, Hug our doxies on the hay.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 53: Our modern doxies / Would call them hobbling watchmen’s boxes.
1806		T.S. Surr Winter in London II 109: Doxies were screaming for their sweethearts, and ’prentices roaring for their companions.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome III 257: The sailors’ doxies are in the habit of smuggling liquors on board in bladders under their petticoats.
1820		Jack Randall’s Diary 40: All hail to the Cove, see his doxies have crown’d him, With gin-dripping shamrocks.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 163: Dells, doxies, kinching morts, and their coes, with all the shades and grades of the Canting Crew, were assembled.
1846		New Swell’s Night Guide to the Bowers of Venus 19: Doxies, fat, fair, and forty.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 217/2: I give below a vocabulary of their talk to each other: [...] Doxy .... A wife. [Ibid.] I 244/2: His ‘Doxy’ stood by and received the ‘voluntary contributions’ of the audience.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Doxy - A female companion of beggars, etc.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. [as 1882].

2. a general term, usu. derog., for a woman or girl, esp. a mistress.

c.1610		Shakespeare Winter’s Tale IV ii: When daffodils begin to peer, / With heigh! the doxy, over the dale.
1616		Jonson Devil is an Ass II iii: Such a mistress of behaviour, She knows from the duke’s daughter to the doxy, What is their due just, and no more!
c.1635		W. Cartwright Ordinary III vi: This night you know he and his doxy meet.
1638		R. Brathwait Barnabees Journal IV Y4: Wilt thou here no longer tarrie / With these Boyes that love Canarie? / Wilt thou leave these nectar trenches, / Dainty Doxes, merry wenches?
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 23: We shall win Houses, Lands, and Doxies.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 187: Though he travels all the day, / Yet he comes home still at night, / And dallies with his Doxie.
a.1680		Rochester ‘In Defense of Satire’ Works (1721) 62: Invites him Home to dine, and fills his Veins / With the hot Blood which his dear Doxy drains.
1699		N. Ward London Spy XI 265: They sneak’d off with their Doxies, as much asham’d as a [...] Puritan out of a Bawdy-House.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:2 25: Love Letters [...] in Great mens names directed to her; / Which to her Spark the Doxy shows.
1706		Fifteen Comforts of Cuckoldom 3: At twelve at Night my Doxie likewise came.
1707		Farquhar ‘To a Gentleman who had his Pocket Pick’d [...] by a Mistriss’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng in 18C Ireland (1998) 65: I much admire the Doxy’s cunning.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 5: And Beaus that in Boxes / Lie smuggling their Doxies.
1732		‘An Irish Wedding’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 113: From Doxies, whose Mouths for raw Flesh are staring / [...] / Good Lord deliver us.
1736		Ordinary of Newgate Account 2 Nov. 10/1: That the Curtains, Knives and Forks, were sold to one Lawrence, in Fleet-lane, by Holburt’s Doxy, for one Pound and one Shilling.
a.1742		W. Somerville ‘The Fortune Hunter’ in Chalmers Eng. Poets (1810) canto III 221: Drinks double bub with all his might / And hugs his doxy every night .
1750		Proceedings Old Bailey 30 May 59/2: Your doxy and Mr. Pearce’s doxy were there, but not with us when we had this discourse.
1765		H. Howard Choice Spirits Museum 99: Apollo [...] To his Doxy Miss Thetis had just slipt away.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 34: He’d have my doxy for his whore.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 136: Let each cull’s and doxy’s heart / Be lighter than a feather.
a.1790		C. Dibdin ‘The Soldier’s Last Retreat’ Collection of Songs II 153: I [...] Swear, and all that, / Nor ever dread / A broken head / Where the cause of strife’s a doxy.
c.1800		‘The Tar’s Frolick’ in Holloway & Black (1975) I 259: Some doxies being there seem’d quite full of glee.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1822		D. Carey Life in Paris 335: Here our sparks soon provided themselves with doxies.
1833		‘Ye Rakehells So Jolly’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 25: Ye rakehells so jolly, who hate melancholy; / And love a full flask and a doxy.
1841		‘Billy Taylor’s Three Square’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 12: Now like Macheath, with all his doxies, / He strutted like a dunghill cock! / But knew not which to serve the first, / With his most tremendous jock.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 101: The younger members of the gentler sex being known by the peculiar title of ‘doxy’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 116/2: I was highly tickled at my ‘chum’s’ fix, and could afford to laugh at Joe’s efforts to balance his huge doxy, first on one knee, then on the other, and again on both.
1874		Alloa Advertiser 9 May 6/2: His ‘doxy’ is not the ‘doxy’ of Mr Spurgeon’s [Tabernacle].
1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 72: She stoopped and kissed the slavering lips [...] ‘It’s the old fake’s doxy,’ hoarsely whispered a burly ruffian.
1906		A. McCormick Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway 201: Come over here, my little ju-bi-ju, and I’ll be your doxy-poxy (sweetheart).
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Dec. 11/2: Now the sailor’s ‘doxy’ only gets an occasional airing on a blue serge arm, the limb being mostly monopolised by a nice girl or a married lady.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 375: Young Stephen said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in those days.
1938		S. Beckett Murphy (1963) 144: And no doubt your great piece of news is the same as your doxy’s.
1949		J.H. Burns Lucifer with a Book 326: Having picked up Ginny Snelgrove and several doxies from the local high school.
1952		B. MacMahon Children of the Rainbow 88: A doxy an’ her fella on the top bench of the barn.
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 26: I [...] will not tolerate [...] Mick Mulligan to bring his doxies here and perform strange tribal rites with them.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 119: Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he could gamble and I could chase doxies.
1983		W. Trevor Fools of Fortune 119: Cripes, I don’t know where you scraped that from [...] A right doxy you picked up there.
1989		H. Harrison Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 193: Death, blood, destruction [...] And that muscle-bound doxie goes first.
1992		B. Gifford Night People 10: The brothers could drink, dance with an assortment of neighborhood doxies and slumming college girls.
1999		(con. 1921) R. Doyle A Star Called Henry (2000) 312: You’re a fine man, Captain [...] No doxie could ever take the starch out of your trousers.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] One enterprising young hoon had shot him three times in a spat over some doxy the Soup had defiled.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 230: The doxies were visited by their abortions, skinless transparent foetuses.

3. a prostitute; note added pun/joke in cit. 2001.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Doxies, [...] being neither Maids, Wives, nor Widows, will for good Victuals, or a very small piece of money, prostitute their Bodies, protesting they never did before, and that meer necessity then oblig’d them to it (tho’ common Hackneys). These are very dextrouse at picking Pockets [...] and so barbarous as often to murder the Children thus got.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 111: The hot codpiece’d Libertines [...] carry off their Doxies to some Bawdy-House Conveniency.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 143: The Beaus and Men of Business / Diversions hither bring, / To hear the wanton Doxies prate, / And see ’em dance and sing.
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera III iii: Thus I stand like the Turk, with his doxies around, From all sides their glances his passion confound .
1732		Harlot’s Progress 48: Then build an Hospital for Doxies, / Endue it with a handsome Bounty.
1746		W. Dunkin Parson’s Revels (2010) 62: [A]llow’d / To pick his Partner from a Crowd / Of Doxies.
1759		Memoirs of the celebrated Miss Fanny M-. 95: Apprentice boys, who were seduced to the house, to spend double the sum they gave their doxy in bad punch, and worse negus.
c.1800		‘Song No. 12’ Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: The Doxy gone and left me naked.
1836		‘A New Version Of Regent Street’ in Cockchafer 14: But she is one that’s worth your pelf, / Because I swab her out myself. / I’m her C.P., you may conceit, / I’m her C.P., you may conceit, / She’s the cleanest doxy in Regent Street.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 8 Jan. n.p.: The abominable ‘goings on,’ as she described the doings of the doxies and their paramours.
1844		New Sprees of London 27: [W]e will begin with the flash doxies, the swell toggers: these are called dress girls.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 63: The sailors separated from their doxies, and rushed forward to assist.
1859		Western Times 4 June 10/2: She was walking by Royal Oak; the two Crispins [...] halloaed after her ‘There goes a doxy;’ after they had said it they began swearing at her.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) II 396: Immediately I left off frequenting the poor Doxies [...] and went to a higher class.
1897		C. Whibley ‘Deacon Brodie’ A Book of Scoundrels 238: He visited an ancient doxy of his own, who, with her bully, shielded him from justice.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 74: Square miles of bordellos were maintained by picturesque madames who had their own newspaper to report the social affairs of their doxies.
1977		G. Melly Rum, Bum and Concertina (1978) 27: The hairless leg of a doxy extending sleepily over the edge of a hammock.
1986		R. Campbell In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 1: She was an amateur doxy thinking about going pro.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 157: This character by the name of Younger picked up two teenaged doxies from a Hollywood stroll.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Doxie (n): a lady of the night who plies her trade on the docks.