Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an admirable person or creature.

1832		J.K. Paulding Westward Ho! I 121: Hold your tongue, you beauty, or you shall smell brimstone through a nail hole.
1843		L.H. Medina Nick of the Woods I ii: Here comes the strange lady: now do behave yourselves. Ain’t she a beauty?
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 186: ‘Ah, you beauties!’ exclaimed the Major again cracking his whip.
1869		‘Ouida’ Under Two Flags 215: You can’t view the beauties two minutes together.
1879		Barman & Barmaid 12 July 2/2: My first governor [...] was a perfect beauty in every sense of the word [...] a fatherly gentleman, of benevolent aspect.
1895		E. Pugh Street in Suburbia 139: Ain’t ’e a beauty?
1899		Boy’s Own Paper 4 Feb. 300: Lash away, you beauty, I have you!
1907		Gem 16 Mar. 10: He’s a beauty! Fourteen feet if he’s an inch!
1911		G. Stratton-Porter Harvester 12: The beauties!
1923		W. Holtby Anderby Wold (1981) 118: We’ve just landed a lovely little pair o’ twins, Miss Mary. Prime little beauties.
1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 62: Lord, but you’re the horse I been looking for all me life [...] got to be mates, my beauty.
1942		Whizzbang Comics 82: Hallo, you beauties!
1950		A. Buckeridge Jennings Goes To School 193: Golly, isn’t he a beauty! [...] Massive hairy legs.
1963		N. Dunn Up the Junction 11: Aren’t they beauties? Aren’t they darlings?
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 78: Oh you little bewdy.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 39: bewdy [...] common Australian term of praise, pronunciation – variant of beauty, as in ‘You little bewdy!’.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] ‘I got Mrs Brierley.’ ‘You beauty. What does she say?’.

2. thus any person, admirable, attractive or, ironically, otherwise.

1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 21: A couple of the filthiest ragamuffins Edward had ever set eyes on. On the approach of these beauties [etc.].
1843		W.T. Moncrieff Scamps of London II iii: Not yet, my beauty.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 17: Well, beauty, wot’s a-comin?
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 219: Devil take ’em for a pair of beauties.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 20 July 665: Pull away, my beauty.
1902		P.L. Dunbar Jest Of Fate (1903) 211: ‘Well, you’re a beauty,’ she said finally, with cutting scorn.
1910		Marvel 15 Oct. 16: ‘You precious beauty!’ said Tom, eyeing the scoundrel with a glance of contempt.
1923		C.B. Poultney Mrs. ’Arris 253: ‘Huh,’ she says, bitter, ‘you’re a beauty to talk, anyway.’.
1926		‘Sapper’ Final Count 928: I’ve got the other beauty. We’re through the last line.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 181: Got you my beauties.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 34: This ‘Lolly’s’ a beauty [...] He comes up here one night and blows down my ear about all the mazooma he’s won.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 139: Let’s get these beauties to the hospital.
1965		J. Orton Loot Act II: You’re fucking nicked, my old beauty.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 303: ‘G’day, Harry. Who you got there?’ ‘A bewdy, Tim! This one’s the mother-fucker of ’em all!’.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 97: You alright, beauty?

3. a thing, usu. with positive overtones.

1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 216: I’ve been looking at your frigate, and she’s a beauty.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. V 27: I’ve just been cleaning that little beauty and loading it up.
1857		T. Hughes Tom Brown’s School-Days (1896) 12: He’s got some real beauties to be fond of.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 438/1: It was a beauty. A Bath cane, with a splendid ivory head.
1874		E.K. Wood Johnny Ludlow II 230: A pie in her hands the size of a pulpit canopy. [...] ‘My, what a beauty!’ exclaimed Grizzle.
1882		A. Pinkerton Professional Thieves and Detectives 35: Here are the ‘beauties;’ and he whipped out two ten-dollar bills, counterfeits.
1898		Kipling ‘Stalky’ Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 24: Come down to my house. My missus shall write ’ee a beauty, young gen’elmen.
1906		Marvel 27 Oct. 388: A forty horse-power, six-cylinder car of our own make – a real beauty.
1909–17		T.S. Eliot ‘Columbo & Bolo’ Inventions of the March Hare in Ricks (1996) 317: Now when they were three weeks at sea / Columbo he grew rooty / He took his cock in both his hands / And swore it was a beauty.
1922		Wodehouse Clicking of Cuthbert 132: He addressed his ball, and drove a beauty over the trees.
1942		(con. 1890s) S. O’Casey Pictures in the Hallway 80: A straight-left beauty to the poor man’s chin that sent him in a curled-up heap to the floor.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 66: Maxie landed a beauty the next round.
1963		‘Nino Culotta’ Gone Fishin’ 155: Old George Chuckled. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. ‘That’s a beauty.’.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 71: [I] start up my beauty once more nice and gently.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 22: ‘It’ll still be a good night’ [...] ‘It’ll be a beauty’.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 139: I shot in and gave him a beauty under the other eye.
1990		J. Healy Streets Above Us (1991) 111: He looks at the truncheon. ‘Yes, me old beauty, you’ve been superseded by the old punishment and reward game.’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 156: turn that fucking beauty up! fuck me! what does that sound like? is that a fucking epic or what?
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] Blair [...] landed a beauty right on old mate’s scone.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 3: ‘Ya beauty,’ he yelled, grinding the car into gear.

4. the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

5. (US gay, also beautocks, beauts) the buttocks [pron. as well as praise].

[c.1800		‘Brick Dust Nan’ Papers of Francis Place (1819) No.27: The wind blew her tatters abroad, and her arse and brown beauties revealed].
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 23: beauns ([...] a form of buns); beautocks ([...] fr beauns + buttocks); beauts (‘Sit on your beauts, maybe that’ll stop your hole from flapping’); beauty ([...] early ’60s).
1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐.