daddy-o n.
1. (orig. US black, also dad-o) a term of address between males; note rare female term mammy-o in cit. 1969.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Two Blocks Down, Turn to the Left’ 🎵 Say, Daddy-O, do you know where a cat can have a ball and put on a fine feedbag? | |
| Tambourines to Glory Prologue: I speak all tongues [...] baby, daddy-o. | |
| letter 22 Apr. in Harris (1993) 121: Get with those technicolor peyote kicks Daddy O. | |
| West Side Story I vi: Take it slow and, Daddy-o, / You can live it up and die in bed! | |
| Imabelle 21: A good feeling is a sign of death, Daddy-o. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Absolute Beginners 18: ‘This summer can’t last’ [...] ‘Oh yes it can, daddy-o’. | |
| letter 10 Sept. in Proud Highway (1997) 186: Daddio! You mean the bronze plaque paragraph bugged you? | |
| Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 151: ‘There’s good times ahead, Daddy-O’. | |
| letter 19 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 463: Dear Daddio. | |
| Rage in Harlem (1969) 22: [as 1957]. | |
| Awopbop. (1970) 90: That’s nice, baby, ooh mammy-o, lay it down, sock it to me. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 210: I can’t tell ’em nothing, daddy-O. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Harder They Come 315: Ida? Nope, Dadio. Sure don’t. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 29: Crazy, Daddy-O! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Godson 149: ‘That’s about the size of it, daddio’. | |
| Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 223: And PS, Daddy-o, you will notice that the pistol is pointed at you. | |
| White Boy Shuffle 66: ‘Hey, man, what you listening to?’ [...] ‘Jazz, daddio, jazz’. | |
| Guardian Guide 31 July–6 Aug. 18: Rent that [...] right this minute, Daddy-O! | |
| Guardian Guide 11–17 Sept. 6: Cool, daddio. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 91: Say what, big man? Say what, daddy-o? | |
| Guardian 23 Aug. 34/4: ‘Pipe down, daddio!’. | |
| Widespread Panic 121: This mock marriage sends them, Daddy-O. |
2. (orig. US) a boyfriend, male lover, husband.
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 103: I’m you’re daddy-O, you’re my baby-O, and Queen Bee, that’s what she wrote. | |
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 9: When I pin you daddio the wagon in here, and you lodes my heart on. You don’t pack no six gun, but you are a bad bad boy, and for you my lid always flip. | |
| Walk on the Wild Side 202: They always come back to their Daddy-O. It’s what they call me, their Daddy-O. | |
| in Hellhole 189: Some white daddy-o offers to lay a lot of money and expensive presents on me. | |
| Maledicta III:2 222: The old may get done as a charity case or serve as some youth’s sugar daddy (or otherwise pay for it, which some prefer to do because of the freedom involved but most consider degrading or desperate), but daddy-o is sad to be past it. | |
| Homeboy 49: He was just another of her supply of deadbeat daddyos. | |
| Guardian Rev. 13 Aug. 23: Conceived in the tradition of beatnik culture (see also goatees, long-haul car journeys, baggy jumpers and daddios). | |
| Shame the Devil 148: ‘The Black Cat’s got a good bill.’ ‘You comped?’ ‘You got it, Daddy-O.’. |
3. (US Und.) a pimp.
| Cast the First Stone 19: Some hostile cop [...] tries to make them inform on their pimps. But the girls won’r rat on their daddy-o’s. | |
| in Sweet Daddy Preface: Philly [...] is a ‘sweet daddy’, a daddy-o, a modern-day pimp. |
4. any male.
| (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 10: ‘Give daddy-o the booty’. | |
| ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 328: Daddy-o deadpanned us. |
5. (US black) a thing, an object.
 | $100 Misunderstanding 183: I git me so godam fuss up bout that daddio [i.e. a word] I bout flip. |
6. (US black) the exemplar.
| Dinosaurs in the Morning 17: Black introduced Rexroth as a horse wrangler and the Daddy-O of the jazz-poetry movement. |
7. a macho, ‘butch’ male homosexual.
| Queens’ Vernacular 59: daddy-o [...] 2. butch, often sarcastically applied. |