Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a High Churchman, a Tory, a Jacobite.

1694		D’Urfey Comical Hist. of Don Quixote Pt 2 epilogue n.p.: Gadslids your Top high Flyers of the Town, Now scarce wear any thing that is their own; One has false Teeth, another has false Hair.
1705		E. Hickeringill Priest-Craft I 48: You most Learned Church-men and High Flyers, you are pickt out of the vulgar, like Jewels out of a Dunghil.
1709		S. Centlivre Busy Body Act I: ’Tis a vast Addition to a Man’s Fortune [...] to be seen in the Company of leading Men; for then we are thought to be Politicians, or Whigs, or Jacks, or High-Flyers.
1715		S. Centlivre Gotham Election I i: His Lady is a what d’ye call it – a High-flyer, – and nothing so great as our Parson’s Wife and she.
1741		Scots Mag. 5 June 38/1: The Towzer [...] is often known in politics by the name of Tory, and amongst ecclesiastics by that of High-flyer —All opinions, but his own, are damnable heresies.
1770		W. Dunkin ‘A Receipt for Making a Doctor’ in Works I 275: Spunge upon Irish Priests, and Friers, / And drink a health to all high-flyers.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions .
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1805		T.G. Fessenden Democracy Unveiled 179: This same Jacobin high flyer, / Is such a Satan of a liar.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1865		Bradford Obs. 2 Mar. 6/6: It brings forward the better heads of the Church in contrast with the fanatical and high-flyers as they used to be called.

2. a daring adventurer.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: High Flyers, [...] bold Adventurers.
1721		Penkethman’s Jests 111: This is an excellent Fowl, and a fit Dish for High-flyers.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1824		Annals of Sporting 1 Feb. 117: Here’s to the champion of Albion, my lads, / [...] / Here’s to the highflyers, here’s to the pads.
1888		‘’Arry on Marriage’ in Punch 29 Sept. 156/2: Ah! a lot of highflyers is spiked for the want of the ochre, wus luck!

3. a pretentious or fashionable strumpet, a promiscuous woman.

1663		Pepys Diary 27 May n.p.: A woman sober, and no high-flyer, as he calls it.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: High Flyers, Impudent, Forward, Loose, Light Women; also bold Adventurers.
1706		R. Estcourt Fair Example I i: Madam, Scandal is the very Pam in Conversation [...] If you have but Stock enough to pay your Club in that, you may keep Company with the highest Flyer.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: high-flyer an impudent lewd woman.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant [as cit. a.1790].
1818		W. Perry London Guide 118: Many of these High-flyers, though they keep, or job, a coach, and livery servants, can swear a good round stave as any fish-fag at Billingsgate .
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 96: High-flyers — women of the town, in keeping, who job a coach, or keep a couple of saddle-horses at least.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 8 Jan. 5/3: Miss Highflyer ran all the way to the corner of the square in her night-dress.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 36: High Flyer, a flash woman.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 84: HIGHFLYER: old Australian slang – a name for the most stylish demi-mondaines. The Sydney Highflyers.
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 58: It was the costume she had worn as Flossie Highflier.
1926		Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict. 13/2: She’s a high flyer – Hang onto your pocketbook.
1930		G. Milburn ‘Down in Lehigh Valley II’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 52: We had a girl named Nellie, / And she was some high flyer.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 45: I bet you’ve been a high flyer in your time.
1986		J.B. Keane Bodhrán Makers 236: So she had now taken to frequenting wrendances. He had always suspected she was a bit of a flier.

4. a patron of the gallery at a theatre.

1719

in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 349: High-flyers, Pit-players, be still if you can.

5. a pretentious or exaggerated statement.

1776

G.J. Pratt Pupil of Pleas I. 168: If your Honour had heard the high-fliers he crammed my poor head with, all the while we were at it—the soft things he said [etc.] [OED].

6. a genteel beggar or swindler.

1622		J. Mabbe (trans.) Life of Guzman Pt I Bk II 112: I fell in with other Tassel-gentles, much about my size and pitch, that were high Flyers, and cunning in the catching of their prey.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 318: As you have your ‘Highflyers’ at Almack’s, at the West End, we also have some ‘choice creatures’ at our ALL MAX in the East.
1852		Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: The ‘black dodger’ [...] has just tipped half a bull (2s. 6d.) to a high-flyer for writing him a pathetic account of the conversion of Guleb Sherab.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 268: He never ‘chummed with ken cadgers.’ he was a ‘high-flier,’ a genteel beggar. When he worked, it was in jewellers’ shops, whipping up gold rings and chains as soon as the tradesman’s back was turned.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 250/2: Pursuing the course of a ‘high-flyer’ (genteel beggar), he met with an interruption in his pursuits.
1881		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 17 May. 7/4: He tried many dodges, from that of ‘high flyer’ [...] down to ‘standing pad’.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 213: We calls ’em ‘High-Flyers’ [...] ’cause they fly their kites fer high game. Them’s th’ ones as goes fer th’ big nobs on Clint’n Avernu.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 36: High Flyer, [...] a swindler.

7. a ‘swell’ beggar, who poses as a fashionable gentleman; thus high flying n.

1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 133: These highflyers had all their fancy blones.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 49: HIGH-FLYER, a genteel beggar, or swindler.
1868		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 535: ‘Don’t you think ‘highflying’ would suit me better, although I know little about it?’ ‘O, that’s above your mark; a “highflyer” is a bloke who dresses like a clergyman, or some gentleman. He must be educated, for his game is to know all the nobility and gentry, and visit them with got-up letters [...] for the purpose of getting subscriptions to some scheme.’.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 9 June 7/3: He tried many dodges, from that of travelling parson, ‘high-flyer’ [...] down through the ranks of beggardom to the lowest dodge of all — ‘standing pad’ in the street as a ‘shallow cove’.
1956		T. Thursday ‘The Big Squawk’ in Smashing Detective Mag. 15 Apr. 🌐 A high-flyer named Blinky Dinky—known to police as Roscoe Timms—was bounced off with a .38.

8. (US) an important person or one who poses as such; thus antonym low flier.

1824		Morn. Chron. (London) 21 Apr. 4/2: But, alas! his time was gone by and he was no longer considered among the Highflyers.
1830		H.W. Montague Monsieur Mallet 15: ‘Here’s,’ cried the clerk, ‘one Mallett – some high-flyer – A General.’.
1843		W.T. Thompson Major Jones’s Courtship (1872) 76: I tell you what, the highfliers that’s been tryin to be aristockrasy fokes has hawled in their horns considerable.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 1: Considering that Billy Pringle [...] was only an underbred chap, he was as good an imitation of a Swell as ever we saw. He had all the airy dreaminess of an hereditary highflyer.
1893		J. Walsh [perf. Vesta Tilley] ‘Fairly Knocked the Yankees in Chicago’ 🎵 But in England as a liar, I was reckoned quite a flier.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 27 Jan. 2/5: Maud Matilder, lord luv yer ole gums, yer look a reglar ’igh flyer.
1899		F.E. Daniel Recollections of a Rebel Surgeon 102: Mrs. Taylor [...] was a ‘high-flyer at fashion,’—a society lady.
1919		F. Hurst ‘Oats for the Woman’ in Humoresque 72: Your old man in his young days wasn’t such a low flier, neither.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 94: Captain Castleton is one of the top highfliers and biggest swells out of London.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 131: He was a high-flyer in the straight establishment.
1999		Guardian Rev. 27 Nov. 6: Several were first-stage high-flyers who would go on to become MPs.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Travel 26 Mar. 2: I had done an MBA and was considered a high flyer by my employers.

9. (also high-fly) a begging-letter writer.

1842		Edinburgh Rev. July 484: ‘High-Fliers,’ or begging-letter writers, are, it would seem, the next in order of importance after Lurkers. These [...] scribble false statements of their having been unfortunate in business, or suffered great losses.
1847		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London III 85/1: A Stranger—looked like a high-fly. Redge-fawney .
1871		G.A. Atkins Brine letter July 3 in Ribton-Turner (1887) n.p.: I have been a ‘shallow cove’ (i.e. a member of the land navy; also a ‘highflyer’ (i.e. a begging-letter impostor); a ‘lurker’ (one who is forty different trades, and master of none). My favourite ‘lurk’ was butcher, tallow chandler, or currier.
1895		J. Caminada Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life I 14: The ‘high-flier,’ or begging-letter imposter would be ‘pattering’ to the ‘shallow cove’.

10. a gentleman who has fallen on hard times.

1887

Standard 20 June 5/2: The pretended noblemen and Knights who ‘say they have suffered by war, fire, or captivity, or have been driven away, and lost all they had,’ are still represented by the high-flyers or broken-down gentlemen [F&H].

11. (US black) one who lives well, one who enjoys material success.

1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Shocks of Doom’ in Voice of the City (1915) 97: ‘I used to be a high-flyer myself – some years ago. What knocked you out of the game?’ ‘I, oh, I lost my job,’ said Vallance.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 101: He was a high-flyer, I guess. Liked the atmosphere of the place.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 3: Australia’s most articulate high-flyer lays before the reader in these pages the experience of a lifetime.
1999		Indep. on Sun. 18 July 1: City high-flyers will be given performance-related pay packages.
2000		Observer Screen 9 Jan. 9: An arrogant city high-flier.