Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Ling. Fr./Polari) a bed; a room; thus letties, lodgings, accommodation; thus lattie on water, a ship; lattie on wheels, a carriage or automobile.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1875		T. Frost Circus Life and Circus Celebrities 279: ‘Letty’ is used both as a noun and as a verb, signifying ‘lodging’ and ‘to lodge’.
1881		Newcastle Courant 25 Nov. 6/5: She can strike the jigger to regular tradesmen like ourselves while the omee lies in letty and dreams.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 45: ‘But I say, Blower, how about letty?’ ‘Kip for you two, eh?’.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 173/1: Mange, letty, bevy and clobber. Italian – through the organ-grinders’ lodging-houses. Eating, bed, drink, clothes – this last word being Hebrew.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 191/1: Letty. Lodgings.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 99: One of them [...] mentioned that he wouldn’t mind lumbering the matelot up his lattie.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society Appendix 3, 167: Latty, flat, room.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 124: latty (Brit gay sI, fr Parlyaree, // It letto = bed) room or apartment; pad, and therefore also the bed or the room it is in.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 233: Bless this lattie / Strong and stout / Keeping all the naph / Omis out.
1999		M. Coward in Verbatim 24:2 n.p.: If something is naff, you would want to put the mockers on it [...] You certainly wouldn’t want anything naff where you live, in your lattie.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 294/1: lattie a house or flat [...] lattie on water, a ship; lattie on wheels a carriage, car or taxi.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 294/1: letties lodgings.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 294/1: letty 1. a bed. 2. to sleep.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 58: A dizzy mushroom cloud rose as the rest of the latty went under.