Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. attractive, smooth-complexioned; by ext. effeminate.

1654		New Brawle 6: What gentlerman would not [...] rather be dealing with her than with her Husband [...] or [a] smock-fac’d Prentice.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 87: Clapping me on the cheeks, calling me Smock-face Rogue.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 283: Thou’rt a pretty Smock-fac’d Lad.
1697		M. Pix Innocent Mistress V iv: Hang him, rogue. He’s smock-faced, and handsome.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Smock-fac’d, fair Snout.
1709		M. Pix Adventures in Madrid III i: Talk of the Devil and his Imps appear, here’s my Governour and a Smock’d Fac’d Boy.
1716		J. Addison Drummer II i: A very smock-fac’d man.
1725		Bailey (trans.) Erasmus’ Colloquies 485: They chose some pretty smock-faced Fellows to take them by the Hand.
1735		Newcastle Courant 14 June 1/2: If we have a War, it is such brave Fellows as Cavally that must save us, not those pretty Smock-faced Fellows that are all Wigg and Waistcoat.
1748–49		Cleland Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 154: He took her really for what she appear’d to be, a smock-fac’d boy.
1754		Caledonian Mercury 30 Dec. 2/1: A smock-faced young Levite [...] mounted upon a warm Filley.
1764		K. O’Hara Midas I iv: A smock-fac’d Youth!
1780		‘Grubstreticus’ Parody on the Rosciad 18: That powder’d, prating smock-faced booby.
c.1790		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Sir Joseph Banks & the Emperor of Morocco’ Works (1794) II 193: Old greybeards grave, and pretty smock-fac’d prigs.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1817		‘Elegy Written in Spa-Fields’ in Morn. Post 13 Feb. 2/4: Can brainless WADDINGTON, or smock-faced CLARKE, Make the Reporters heed their idle prate?
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 15 Dec. 135/3: A smock-fac’d thing who little knew / The object Madam had in view.
1853		Lloyd’s Wkly Newspaper 22 May 8/3: [She] can transform the most smock-faced youth into the most hairy Samson.
1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 101: He was but a smock-faced lad fresh from the Mall.
1878		Yorks. Post 26 June 3/3: The same smock-faced youth who had come to him that evening.
1882		Illus. London News 18 Mar. 6/3: I would rather see Romeo performed by a consummate master of his art [...] than by a good-looking, smock-faced young fellow.
1899		Sheffield Wkly Teleg. 1 Apr. 22/2: She declared a particularly strong aversion to ‘smock-faced lads’.
1941		Gloucester Citizen 3 Nov. 5/3: Described as having ’an odd, effeminate way [...] smock fac’d’.

2. (Aus., also smock) prim, priggish.

1902		Truth (Sydney) 22 June 8/4: Full of holiness & virtue, / Smock-faced virtue, every one; / Never mindin of the sin which / Every nite were being done .
1910		Truth (Perth) 10 Dec. 4/8: Not the slowest of the slow, sir, / Are the modest and the prim, / Living in a smock-faced manner—.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 23 Feb. 5/1: With a simperin’ school-girl snigger / On her mug, so smock and square.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 4 May 5/5: When them smock-mugged sorter people / Do descend to games like that.