Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Irish/US black/teen) wonderful, admirable, first-rate.

1818		J. Hogg Brownie of Bodsbeck II 19: Aih, but he’s a terrible clever body yon Geordie Lockie.
1825		T.C. Croker Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1862) 30: Describing a female beauty, an Irish peasant may perhaps say, that Peggy So-and-so is a shocking pretty girl, or a terrible pretty girl.
1845		R.S. Surtees Hillingdon Hall I 305: These Lunnuners are terrible wise people. I’m sure I don’t know how I shall carry home what they’ve said.
1948		J. O’Connor Come Day – Go Day (1984) 42: Lord, they’re terrible people for music, the Murphys. [...] Just like them to sit there playing and singing with the water up round the door.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 53: For some strange reason he don’t move me, but that Jones girl, whoof. Never seen such a terrible cutta in all my life.
1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 206–7: The cats put on a platter by Miles and Bird, / the terriblest jam I ever heard.
1978		R. Charles Brother Ray 248: One musician towered above the rest. That was Aretha. She’s terrible, man.
1982		G. Tate ‘Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 41: A masterpiece of mindless pleasure [...] showing once again how intelligent life can devolve from do-do into some terrible Afro-pop.