Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an unappealing, unpleasant, untrustworthy person.

1903		Ade People You Know 176: No-Goods who had lost their Jobs.
1908		ref. in H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 272: no-good. A worthless person or thing; the modern form (OED, 1908) of good-for-nothing and ne’er-do-well.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 281: Look at the no-goods what you see about. Same as them there screevers.
1927		C. Sandburg ‘Portland County Jail’ in Amer. Songbag 215: He said I was a lazy bum, a no-good.
1931		Blanche Calloway ‘Misery’ 🎵 My life was one sweet song, / ‘Til that heartbreakin’ day, / Some no-good came along / And stole my man away.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 3: Get out the stripes for that bunch of no-goods.
1947		C. Willingham End as a Man (1952) 127: What a no-good he turned out to be.
1955		F.B. Vickers Mirage (1958) 224: We keep to ourselves and don’t have no no-goods round us.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 94: Gangland in-fighting is virtually confined to the moronic no-goods who are recruited as dispensable hands.
1987		(con. 1950s) G. Moloi My Life 110: I also remember Ketie, Boys, Hosia and Dick. [...] They were all no-goods from Sophiatown.
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 389: He’s all up in that dope, just like most of these young no-goods.