Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a woman.

1830		J.B. Skillman N.Y. Police Reports 28: Ann has an elegantly turned person — her tones are silvery and musical, and her complexion is that of the setting sun. Ann is Squaw!!!
1841		W.J. Neale Paul Periwinkle 344: Suppose the ship is on fire, you young squaw, do you think you can put it out by spilling my glass of hot grog on the decks.
1879		Cimarron News and Press 20 Nov. 2/2: He spoke of Mrs. Price and Josephine Meeker heap brave squaws [DA].
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 238: When a gent [...] quits me cold an’ clammy for a squaw he don’t know ten weeks, you can gamble that lets me plumb out.
1903		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear’ in Rolling Stones (1913) 46: I could see how John Tom could resist any inclination to hate that white squaw.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 118: You got a squaw that is some squaw, take it from me.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 404: How’s the squaws and papooses?
a.1932		‘Wild Buckaroo’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 106: I’ve got no senorita and I’ve got no squaw, / I’ve got no sweetheart nor no mother-in-law.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 192: Grifters are always marrying some squaw who is a bum.
1949		R. Service ‘No Sourdough’ in Songs of a Sun Lover (1955) 66: To be a bony feed Sourdough / You must, by Yukon Law, / Have killed a moose, [...] And bunked up with a squaw.
1961		R.A. Norton Through Beatnik Eyeballs 15: Dad not one for having fancy squaws or soaking the juice.
1988		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 397: I don’t know but it’s been said, / A Stanford squaw is good in bed!

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1933

E.A. Robertson Ordinary Families 235: Unless his favourite daughter was getting the worst of it, father never interfered in ‘squaw-squabbles’.

3. a subservient woman, occas. man.

1883		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 29: I didn’t think Ma had so much sand. She is brave as a lion, and Pa is a regular squaw.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 186: I’d be your squaw — in some horrible place.
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 47: Marg came up with her arms full of packages [...] ‘Here, James,’ she said. ‘I’m no squaw.’.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 184: You first, is that right? Always you first. I’m not much good at being a squaw, but maybe I’ll learn. Back home the women eat at the second table. Right?

4. a wife.

1907		R. Service ‘The Parson’s Son’ in Songs of a Sourdough 12: We were just like a great big family, and every man had his squaw.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 149: If my squaw finds out that the bank roll is shy 20 bones she’ll bounce all the crockery off my nob.
1912		B. Fisher Mutt & Jeff 18 Mar. [synd. cartoon] The squaw has gone to a party.
1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 30 July [synd. col.] Dudley (RKO) Murphy’s squaw is telling it to a Parisian judge.
1936		E. Hemingway letter 12 Apr. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 447: Jack Coles is here with his new squaw.
1938		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 2 Mar. [synd. col.] A.L. Alexander [...] has remarried quietly [...] He is introducing a tall attractive blonde as his squaw.

5. (US prison) a passive homosexual.

1994

J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 62: They don’t have no trouble findin your asshole ’cause some four-hundred pound Indian convict from Sonora jist turned you into his pillow-bitin squaw.