Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a foolish weakling; the image is of unnecessary kindliness.

1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 18: I aint one o’ them softies – no how!
1863		M.E. Braddon Aurora Floyd II 77: ‘I’ve mashed the tea for ’ee,’ said the ‘Softy’.
1871		L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 48: Softy, spooney [...] synonyms for a silly, insignificant fellow.
1878		‘’Arry on Politics’ in Punch 11 May 205/2: Guess we don’t go in with the Softies.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 14/2: The Yankees are, no doubt, smart in their way, but, judging from the manner they are worked by the ‘sports,’ they must be, in sporting matters, the greatest ‘softies’ under the sun.
1895–6		(?) H. Lawson ‘How Steelman Told His Story’ in Roderick (1972) 222: The honest softy is more often mistaken for a swindler [...] than the out-and-out scamp.
1900		Kansas Democrat (Hiawatha, KS) 1 Nov. 1/4: Anyone who thinks differently is a softie.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 147: I’m no softy, and she’s got to know it.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 22 Dec. 4/8: I’ve lived among them, mates of mine, / The softies and the hards, / I’ve watched them bluff and dodge a shout.
1910		H. Hapgood Types From City Streets 80: He laughs at him for a ‘softy’ and a ‘sucker’.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 16 Oct. 5/1: Why be a softy and walk with a girl two miles when she doesn’t want you?
1916		N. Douglas London Street Games 22: So the softy gets very keen about being judge.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 150: Kid if you keep on bein a softie about women you’re goin to find yourself in dat lil summer hotel up de river.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 124: He’d laugh at her and call her a softie.
1935		R. Chandler ‘Nevada Gas’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 161: Jeeze, but he’s a softy.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 35: Somehow he hadn’t the heart to do anything about it. She must think him a proper softy.
1944		S. Horler Lady with the Limp 191: A local called Sam Tipton. Had the reputation of being something of a softie.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 152: You are known [...] as a patsy, a quick push, a big softie.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 161: You didn’t rake in the coin in this world by being a softy about anything.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 142: He’s no softie. He’s a hard, tough man.
1958		Ella Fitzgerald ‘You’re an Old Smoothie’ 🎵 You’re an old smoothie / I’m an old softie.
1966		B. Adler Vietnam Letters (2003) 23 May 170: Maybe I am just an old softy.
1968		J. Alard He Who Shoots Last 196: ‘You’re an old softy [...] You should have been a Bible basher’.
1970		T. Parker Frying-Pan 180: I was very small, and I was what was called a ‘softie’.
1982		Beano 13 Nov. 12: What a bunch of softies!
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 101: [T]o [other prisoners] I’m an easy touch, they see me as a softy they can get favours from.
1990		Dennis the Menace Annual 27: We’ll beat the softies to it.
1992		R.G. Barrett White Shoes 250: [of a cat] Ollie’s a big softie, just like me.
2000		Guardian Rev. 3 Mar. 13: Their fellow 70s hellraisers [...] turned into poodle-permed softies.
2011		Private Eye 7-20 Jan. 29/1: His enemy, softy Walter, has become increasingly camp.
2014		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 13: SOFTIE — someone who does not handle adversity or discomfort well: ‘He doesn’t like to work. He’s just a softie’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Sunset’ in Broken 191: ‘Why softy here wrote him is a mystery to me’.

2. a deaf mute.

1880

Portsmouth Eve. News 25 Feb. 4/1: Prosecution of a ‘Softy’ [...] A deaf and dumb man was charged with assaulting a a woman.

3. an impotent man, i.e. one whose penis is soft; a soft penis.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 187: softie lax, unaroused penis.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 110: This was one night he would not [...] rise to the occasion. No, he would have to be an old softie and blame it on the booze.
1984		T. Wolff The Barracks Thief 74: She yanks his underpants to his knees and grabs him between her thumb and forefinger [...] Okay, softy, she says.

4. (Irish und.) an unfledged criminal.

2021

Breen & Conlon Hitmen 101: No longer a ‘softie’, Keith [...] already had nine convictions to his name [...] His transformation into a serious criminal was complete.