Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also lizzie boy) an effeminate youth; a homosexual; thus lizzie-like adj.

c.1864		Rakish Rhymer (1917) 122: Oh, what’s the use of married women going to f—king, / And making us poor Lizzies so forlorn ? / Why don’t they f—k their husbands, and let us have the young men.
1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 36: Now will you kindly tell me why it is that a girl will throw a good fellow down every time for one of those Lizzie boys? If I thought there were enough men in the country who feel as I do, I would start ‘The American Union for the Suppression of Lizzie Boys.’.
1902		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden and Mr Paul 255: I ain’t no airy, fairy Lizzie.
1906		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Coming-Out of Maggie’ in Four Million (1915) 78: Demps Donovan picked a scrap with your Lizzie-boy.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 222: Him with the pale hair and the narrow mouth? Huh! He is Lizzie-like, ain’t he?
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 83: There’s a swell bunch of Lizzie boys and lemon-suckers and pie-faces.
1928		Hecht & MacArthur Front Page 454 : I hear all the reporters in New York are lizzies.
1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 24 Aug. [synd. col.] There will pass from the body of the American Credo one of its cardinal doctrines [...] all chorus men are lizzies.
1965		(ref. to 1920s) Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 28: lizzie (n.): Male homosexual. (Used during 1920’s; now obsolete.).
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 252: Lizzie, an effeminate man; sometimes, for emphasis, lizzie boy.
1991		(ref. to 1930s) in Porter & Weeks Between the Acts 99: He used to call me Lizzie [...] I was more effeminate looking than the other boys.

2. (Aus./US campus) a young woman.

1905		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Oct. 10/1: The lack of that nice attention to detail that marks the genius got a little South Melbourne factory Lizzie into trouble the other day.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Aug. 28/3: The newest caper of the ill-mannered Lizzie [...] is to seize the ball when it gets among the spectators, and drive her dagger [i.e. hatpin] into it.
1926		Odum & Johnson Negro Workaday Songs 163: Dere’s a Lizzie after my man.

3. of vehicles, in affectionate use of the female name.

4. cheap Portuguese wine [abbr. Lisbon, the Portuguese capital].

1936

J. Curtis Gilt Kid 48: The women usually had stout, or a glass of cheap Lisbon red wine, lizzie they called it.

5. see elizabeth n.¹