Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a prostitute.

1591		Greene Notable Discovery of Coosnage 37: The Bawd, if a man, an Apple squire The whoore, a Commoditie / The whoore house, a Trugging place.
1604		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 1 I i: Heeres a coile for a dead commoditie, sfoote women when they are aliue are but dead commodities.
c.1614		Beaumont & Fletcher Faithful Friends I ii: This tiffeny Trader, wants Customers, I thrust em together; this greasie Cittizen, would put off some mustie Comodetie that some young heire would halfe hang himselfe to take vpp.
c.1626		T. Killigrew Princess I i: They are the prettiest kind of commodities, these women, that a man can deal in.
1635		J. Howell Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ (1907) 187: T. T. drank your health yesternight, and wished you could send him a handsome Venetian Courtesan inclos’d in a Letter, he would willingly be at the charge of the postage, which he thinkes would not be much for such a light commodity.
c.1642		T. Killigrew Parson’s Wedding (1664) II v: No partners in such commodities: your factor that takes up maidenheads, ’tis upon his own account.
1675		Head Art of Wheedling 111: By these Artifices he assuredly helps her [...] and is well satisfied for dealing with such rotten Commodities.
1677		Behn Rover II i: Blunt. Whoring’s established here by virtue of the Inquisition—Come let’s be gone, I’m sure we’re no Chapmen for this Commodity.
1680		T. Betterton Match in Newgate I ii: That Trade is most worshipful that sells the best Commodities.
1690		J. Crowne Eng. Friar Epilogue: ’Tis treason now French interest to advance: And French commodities are all by law Doom’d to be burnt.
1700		Constables Hue and Cry 5: She seldome puts a Commodity into any Customers hand, but what has been try’d before.
1736		St James’s Register 5: [I am an] Admirer of an English Commodity.
1755		The Tricks of the Town Laid Open (4 edn) 65: The Play-house [...] is the most proper Place for her [i.e. a bawd] to put off her damag’d Commodities.
1761		Reed Register-Office II: Palm some of your freshest Commodities on him for one [i.e. a supposed virgin].
[1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 115: She [i.e. a prostitute] was a very well-fancied commodity when it came to dead horse].

2. (also French commodity) the female genitals.

1575		Appius and Virginia in Farmer (1908) 24: What raging seas would I not plough To her commodity.
1592		Shakespeare Henry VI Pt 2 IV vii: When shall we go to Cheapside, and take up commodities upon our bills?
1607		Dekker & Webster Northward Hoe IV i: Fetherstone and my Lady Greensheild are rid to barter away their light commodities in Ware.
1622		Massinger Virgin-Martyr II i: We must confess, I took too much out of the pot; and he of t’other hollow commodity.
1635		Glapthorne Hollander II i: How kind they [i.e. married whores] will be to a gentleman that comes to deale for their commodities, they will use him and it were their owne husbands.
1647		H. Neville Parliament of Ladies 5: The said Ladyes [...] have leave to sell, give away, or otherwise dispose of their french commodities, without paying Excise or custome.
1650		H. Nevile Newes from the New Exchange 14: [It] may chance to spoile the Trade of all Stallions in Pension, by teaching the rest of the Ladies how to prize their Commodities.
1656		W. Wright ‘Preparative to a Pacification’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 317: Of pleasant sports and mery-trix a many / [...] /To Friday Market, where then may be sold / Private Commodities, both Young and Old.
1660		‘Megg. Spencer’ A Strange and True Conference 7: The spanish mode of shaving off all the wenches hairs of their Commodities.
1672		‘The German Princess’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1893) VII:1 65: But when to this prize he began to draw near / he found he had bought his Commoditie dear.
1683		Whores Rhetorick 111: As in other Trades, they that are richest, are ever thought to be furnished with the best Commodities, have most Customers, and sell their Ware at the dearest rates. [Ibid.] 114: Let her Frenchifie her Commodities, or, (to avoid ribbaldry) her Merchandize, not with that Country Pox, but with hard names, and Je ne sçaiquois.
1689		‘A Cruel & Bloody declaration’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng in 18C Ireland (1998) 39: A base Pox’d Pick-pocket Harlet: / Nullus nunc Anglus, Will buy her Commodities.
1693		Proc. Old Bailey 31 May n.p.: The Prisoner brought him a brisk young Girl, who presently had the Impudence to pull up her Coats, and laying her hand upon her Belly said, Here's that that will do you good, a Commodity for you, if you’ll pay for it.
1699		N. Ward London Spy VI 122: [They] were so Importunate with us to have some dealings with them, that we had much ado to forbear handling their Commodities.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 25: That wheesing, sickly shew, with his Breeches full of the prices of male and female commodities [...] is the Devil’s broker.
1709		J. Spinke Quackery Unmask’d 12: Excellent Medicines ... to straiten a Woman’s Comm-dity.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 69: And for a Supply that our trade may increase, / For wanton Commodity it will grow less.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 187: These [...] were very fond in the large Quantity of that Commodity which they discovered in our Princess.
1740		Dialogue between a Married Lady and a Maid III: He opened the Slit of my Commodity, and conveyed the Head of the Engine to it.
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 31: A tight, good humoured sensible wench, who knows very well how to box her compass; well trimmed aloft, and well sheathed alow, with a good commodity under her hatches.
1759		Proc. Old Bailey 28 Feb. 85/2: I asked him what he would give me; he said nothing ’till he had seen my commodity; the landlady being willing to take money bid me show him, which I did.
1761		Memoirs of [...] Jane D****s 86: An intention to make the Frenchyfied noblemen pay dear for her foreign commodities.
c.1770		Joaks upon Joaks 20: She burned with a candle those parts which modesty allows me not to name [...] The King fell into a great passion, which [Nell’s] wit soon appeased, by telling him that there was a late act of parliament that all French commodities should be burnt.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Commodity, a woman’s commodity; the private parts of a modest woman, and the public parts of a prostitute.
1787		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 27: Her commodity, like those sold by inch of candle, is always knock’d down to the highest bidder.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1836		‘Toasts’ in New Cockalorum Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) II 30: May our members stand stiff to the commodities of great Britain.
1840		‘Black Ey’d Sal’ in Facetious Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 271: I carry no commodities / But what are fit for use — / Then have it, sir, and take my word, / You’ll find it full of juice.
c.1850		Peeping Tom 1 2/1: She yet endeavoured to conceal herbosom with one hand, and her small commodity with the other.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 181: Marchandise, f. 1. The female pudendum; ‘the commodity’.
1925		E. Field ‘A French Crisis’ in Facetiae Americana 19: What shall I term that slimy pit-like orifice of sin, / [...] / A- tuppence, twitchet, coney, commodity or nock.
1999		D. Lypchuk ‘A dirty little story’ in eye mag. 8 July 🌐 He thought she was a real bit of all right, a bunch of calico, a commodity, a freak mommy fawn.

3. the penis.

1654		New Brawle 6: [D]oth not the courtesy of the Wife many times utterher Husbands ill Commoditie, or unsaleable Ware.
1748		Spy on Mother Midnight I 25: [T]here are Ways and Means to come at the Nature of the Commodity with tolerable Certainty; and [...] it's pretty much the Fashion [...] to have a Specimen before-hand, and purchase upon liking.
1770		D. Gunston (ed.) Jemmy Twitcher’s Jests 33: I dreamt it was freighted with a certain commodity you men wear about you [...] Some were large, some small, and some of the middle size.