Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus./UK) a chorus-girl (the inference is of on-stage vulgarity and off-stage promiscuity).

1879		London Life 28 June 7/2: [P]rofuse in their expenditure in drinks, gloves, &c., for Totty, Lottie, and their lady friends.
c.1880		F. McGlennon ‘You Fancy Yourself, Do You!’ 🎵 You hang around stage doors / [...] / Send in little notes to Miss Tottie Short-togs.
1900		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Sept. 6/1: [headline] chorus totties come to real blows.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Sept. 32/1: Now this is a song for the Bald Brigade / That carries a gold-knobbed stick, / And gathers at halls of the leg-show grade / Where Totties spring forth and kick.

2. a young woman, or boy, usu. one who is sexually available; also collectively.

1889		R.W. Coan ‘In The Future’ 🎵 If ladies join the Army on the sly, / Should they dress them up as Scotties, I somehow think those Totties / Would all become deserters by-and-bye.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 Aug. 14/4: What odds to a golden-haired Tottie / Is the loss of a dissolute swain? / If her rival is driving him ‘dotty’ / Miss Tot hasn’t suffered in vain.
1891		Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) 14 Mar. 2/4: ’Tis sweetness steals a fellow’s heart, / And Tottie’s too extremely ‘Tart’.
1895		W. Pett Ridge Minor Dialogues 232: And I say (to Attentive Steward) choose good-looking Tottie for me, mind. (Blasé Boys introduced to wall-flowers). [Ibid.] 283: second youth: (with blasé air). Good-looking Tottie? joyous youth: Ab-so-lutely lovely, my boy. I tell you she even knocked me silly.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 12/2: By then the legitimate unemployed were right out of it, and the draggle-tailed Totties and the wharf-rats and chronic sots were in full possession. It simply rained beer in that lane.
1905		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 21 Jan. 4/4: That Tottie ought to be satisfied with her boy without writing to other girls’ boys.
1914		Joyce ‘An Encounter’ Dubliners (1956) 23: Then he asked us which of us had the most sweethearts. Mahony mentioned lightly that he had three totties.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 323: Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with headache like a totty with her courses.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 272: He saw you out the other night with a gang of totties.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 115: I was wondering who gave all the flowers to a totty like I won’t say who and all the kicks to me, just because my features weren’t out of the matchbox.
1957		J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 211: She has a pal, some old tottie that lends her a flat.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 13: As long as [...] there’s a totty afterwards who wants to find out if she can satisfy the soul of a raving blues player.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 273: Me, a couple of totties, maybe a guest celebrity.
1999		Guardian Guide 19–25 June 30: [of a boy] Ageing queens interested in a bit of Moroccan totty.
1999		J. Poller Reach 1: Look, first the old ‘josser’, as Joyce has it, is talking about tottie. Then when he comes back he’s talking about whipping naughty boys.
2007		Indep. 23 Nov. 48: First, catch your totty.
2022		J. Meades in LRB 9 June 🌐 [H]e’s charvering his way through London’s upper-class totty, including Princess Anne.

3. a high-class prostitute.

1891		Sporting Times 7 Feb. 3/2: (All sorts of other people with no parts in paticular, Dooks, Duchesses, Tarts, Totties [etc.]).
1894		Sporting Gaz. (London) 28 Apr. 527/1: I ask any officer or gentleman what he would do [...] if he were walking home from a party with his wife or sister, and were met by two roughs, one of whom said to the lady, ‘Good night, Tottie’ All who know modern London slang are aware of the meaning of this term.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Feb. 26/2: At last the bobby [...] returned with another constable and a cab, and the whole bevy of now wildly hilarious Totties were run-in for being disorderly and for not having an auctioneer’s licence.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Sept. 4/8: Den along comes two Monte Carlo [a well-known Perth brothel] Totties and Danny Jamieson from der Goldfields Club.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 334: ‘She looks like an absolute totty,’ said all the Mrs. Sam Clarks, disapprovingly.

4. attrib. use of sense 2.

1999		Guardian Sport 16 Apr. 16: Minute a top class professional walks in a room, your totty classes is mentally removing his athletic support.
2004		I. Rankin Fleshmarket Close (2005) 57: ‘Things have picked up on the totty front just lately’.