Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also green ham, ...horse) a novice, an unsophisticated person, esp. a new immigrant or a new arrival in the city from the country.

1682		C. Irvine Historiae Scoticae Nomenclatura 241: Tyrones, fresh-water Souldiers, or new levyed; Greenhorns: also it signifieth novices in any profession .
1719		Proc. Old Bailey 14 Oct. 1/1: The Prisoner said he was a Green Horn, and should pay for a Noggin of Gin ; which he refused to do; and went out; that they followed him and set upon him.
1744		Ordinary of Newgate Account 24 Dec. n.p.: He was then what they called a Green-Horn, and not so dextrous as they, who were old Practioners.
1753		Scots. Mag. 1 Oct. 18/2: Peculiarities which [...] would have denominated me a Greenhorn; or, in other words, a country put very green.
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist I 215: I fancy this is a greenhorn.
1789		Both Sides of the Gutter part II 15: A fat, swaggering Greenhorn.
1793		F. Reynolds How to Grow Rich II i: I’m not a greenhorn or a flat.
1800		Proc. Old Bailey 9 July 428/2: Murphy said he might as well take two as one; he said Murphy called him a green-horn because he would take but one.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 22: We were all a pack of greenhorns, and were quite unacquainted with the routine of business.
1815		W. Scott Guy Mannering Ch. xliv: Why, wha but a crack-brained greenhorn wad hae let them keep up the siller that ye left at the Gordon-Arms?
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome II 104: All the Greenhorms, one by one, Were cited solemnly to meet The ordeal of the shaving seat.
1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 91: A young greenhorn, fresh from the country, met with a nymph of the pavé.
1830		Chester Courant 11 June 3/3: [He] exclaimed in very good English slang, ‘D—m your by eyes you beak, you a’nt fly —you are but a greenhorn’.
1836		D. Crockett Exploits and Adventures (1934) 172: When a greenhorn makes his appearance among them [...] the mourners beat the fellow so entrapped until he consents to treat all hands.
1842		‘The Man About Town’ Nobby Songster 24: I did a little sharping, when e’er I caught a flat, / Or show’d a greenhorn round the town, but was always paid for that.
1849		G.G. Foster N.Y. in Slices 26: The business of plucking the pigeons and ‘putting through’ the greenhorns is done by the ‘respectable’ members.
1858		‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 21: If now [...] you felt inclined to give greenhorn yonder the go-bye, you and I might do a stroke this season.
1862		E.K. Wightman letter 3 Jan. in Longacre From Antietam to Fort Fisher (1985) 97: If an ‘old member’ loses an overcoat or a blanket, he ‘brizes’ one from some ‘green hams’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 103/2: They considered him a greenhorn and unlikely to resent [...] unmanly abuse.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter II 286: ‘But how are you going to do it? [...] Nothing killing?’ ‘Do you suppose we're greenhorns, Sir. No nothing as will tell tales, or do any harm’.
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 80: How could a young woman of such fine magnetic presence, and endowed with such genuine, instinctive purity of taste in everything else, bear the presence of a rough greenhorn like that?
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 22 July 2/2: [G]reenhorns who don’t know enough to read the Police Gazette .
1889		B. Mitford Fire Trumpet II 128: Fat lot of good they’ll do [...] A lot o’ greenhorns.
1894		G.A. Henty Dorothy’s Double II 190: As to the cards there is no occasion to do any hanky panky with them, unless you have got a greenhorn to deal with.
1894		Truth (Sydney) Feb. 1/1: ‘Truth’ Thinks [...] That he must have known what particular kind of superhuman greenhorn said J.D. Fitzgerald must be to believe such a story.
1896		Mirror of Life 11 Nov. 3/3: ‘He was one of the old climbers, he was. [...] We are greenhorns now. We use sticks. He was the last of the real chummies’.
1897		O. Wister Lin McLean 113: ‘Yes, I’m a green horse,’ assented Mr. McLean gallantly; ‘ain’t used to the looks of a twenty-dollar bill, and I shy at ’em.’.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 271: The squatter’s lovely Diana-daughter, awaiting the well-bred greenhorn.
1911		J. Lomax Cowboy Songs 154: He looked so very foolish that we began to look around, / We thought he was a greenhorn that had just ’scaped from town.
1917		G. Bowerman diary 9 Oct. in Carnes Compensations of War (1983) 31: Oh you green horns!
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 33: I was anxious to try new fields, and see the place where I first landed as a greenhorn, five years before.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 9: His old man was a pauperized greenhorn.
1943		C. McCullers Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1986) 60: I don’t want no greenhorn. I need a experienced mechanic.
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 170: So you, you greenhorn, you babe in arms, you poor innocent nit, you think you can just walk in and win?
1979		G. Wolff Duke of Deception (1990) 15: Neither were the Jews of my grandmother’s background very tolerant of greenhorns [...] Jews from Eastern Europe.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 88: Greenhorns just up from the cotton patch always work hard.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 286: In our vocabulary, this meant a victim, a dupe, a greenhorn, a touch [...] not a kill.

2. a virgin; a sexual novice.

1888–94

‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1528: These varied positions test whether the female is a hack or a greenhorn.