Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an insignificant person, a fop; also attrib.

1617		J. Taylor ‘Iacke a Lent’ in Works (1869) I 113: To praise the Turnspit Iacke my Muse is mum, / Nor the entertainment of Iacke Drum / [...] / Nor of Jack Dog, Jack Dale / Jack Fool or Jack-a-Dandy I relate.
1664		Etherege Love In A Tub II iii: If she be not as kind as fair, / But peevish and unhandy, / Leave her, she’s only worth the care / Of some spruce Jack-a-dandy.
1674		T. Duffet Empress of Morocco Act II: For he, and that same Jackadandy Emperour, came here for Ale and Brandy.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Jack-a-dandy, a little impertinent insignificant Fellow.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:3 12: Where the lewd Punk and Jack of dandy / Carouse at Night o’er English Brandy.
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 84: Their magnanimous High and Mightinesses should be made the Scoff of every boozy Jack-a-dandy.
1709		‘Phoebe Crackenthorpe’ Female Tatler (1992) (18) 43: A third Jack-a-Dandy cries, ‘Hang her, she must be threescore, or she couldn’t know so much of the world.’.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c. 1698].
1744		‘Nurse Lovechild’ Tommy Thumb’s Songbook II 23: Nauty Pauty, Jacky Dandy, Stole a piece of Sugar Candy.
1748		L. Pilkington Memoirs (1928) II 254: They all laughed heartily at Jack-a-Dandy, a nickname Lord Middlesex had bestowed on him.
1753		Richardson Sir Charles Grandison (1812) I 33: None of your fluttering Jack-a-dandies, now, would have said this!
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 109: Who like an errant Jack-o-dandy, / Thinks Troy his own as safe as brandy.
1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 24-31 Mar. n.p.: Her Guardian Cuddy Matchwell her Ciscibeo Jacky Dandy.
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist II 39: Here is a Jack-a-dandy.
1794		R. Cumberland Jew I i: And when my monies is all gone, what shall I be then? An ass, a fool, a jack-a-dandy!
c.1800		‘A Scene in the Election’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 69: I’ll vote for none of your Jack-a-Dandy’s.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1816		Proc. Old Bailey 18 Sept. 376/2: WILLIAM BARRETT. I am also acquainted with the other prisoner. Q. What name did you know him by - A. Donnelly alias Jack-a-dandy.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 369: Logic [...] was interrupted in his pursuit by a jack-o’dandy hero, who also quizzed the Oxonian with the appellation of ‘Old Barnacles’.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 19: Jack-a-dandy – a little impertinent fellow.
1839		(con. 1715) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1917) 125: Because they’re in the next room [...] that’s vy, my jack-a-dandy!
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime 195: Idiot, lickplate, Jack-a-dandy!
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1881		J.B.Harwood in Cassell’s Mag. Feb. 164: [...] be hanged to you for a jack-a-dandy, there! [F&H].
1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 18: He was an old Frenchman, a regular jack-a’-dandy.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 39: Jack Dandy, an impertinent little fellow.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 129: There were rooms which the wreckers — no jack-a-dandies neither — flatly refused to enter.