Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also chancey) untrustworthy, undependable.

1866		E. L. Linton Lizzie Lorton II 5: The crop failed, which it often did; apples being ‘chancy’ things down in the dales.
1867		A. Trollope Last Chronicle of Barset I 349: City money is always very chancy .
1870		East London Obs. 19 Mar. 6/6: They prefer ‘chancy’ profits to fixed wages.
1903		G.D. Chase ‘Cape Cod Dialect’ in DN II:v 296: chancy if. Doubtful if. ‘If we wait for him, chancy if he comes.’.
1925		D. Hammett ‘The Gutting of Couffignal’ Story Omnibus (1966) 18: I was tempted to chuck the empty gun at his head. But that was too chancy.
1937		E. Raymond Marsh 186: Come on, my chancy lads! Tally ho!
1945		G. Fairlie Capt. Bulldog Drummond 36: Tracing telephone calls was always a chancy business.
1958		H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 28: Preparing chow [...] for Pops, if he came home tonight. Which was pretty slim chancey.
1966		‘Tom Pendleton’ Iron Orchard (1967) 226: ‘It’s kind of chancy.’ ‘I’m a chancy fellow.’.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 206: Cops be all over that direction, running the interstate, maybe even a roadblock. Too chancy.

2. (Irish) good-looking.

1983

W.F Marshall ‘Sarah Ann’ in Livin’ in Drumlister 73: Jist let him keep his daughter, the hungry-lukin’ nur, / There’s jist as chancy weemin, in the countryside as her.