Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) a drake or duck.

c.1566		Harman Caveat for Common Cursetours in Viles & Furnivall (1907) 83: a quakinge chete or a red shanke a drake or duck.
1592		Groundworke of Conny-catching n.p.: [as cit. c.1566].
1608		Dekker Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 1: Which word Cheate, beeing coupled to other wordes, stands in very good stead, and does excellent service: [...] A Quacking chete, a duck : A Lowghing chete, a Cow: A Bleating chete, a Calfe, or a Sheepe.
1611		Middleton & Dekker Roaring Girle V i: I’ll [...] drink ben bouse, and eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat.
1637		Dekker Canting Song in Eng. Villainies (8th edn) O3: A quacking cheate or Tib ath’ Buttery was our meate.
1648		Dekker Canters Dict. Eng. Villainies (9th edn).
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 51: Quacking Cheat, A Duck.
a.1674		‘A Wenches complaint for . . . her lusty Rogue’ Head Canting Academy (1674) 17: [as cit. 1637].
1684		W. Nevison in Newgate Calendar I (1926) 291: ‘Now,’ saith he, ‘that thou art entered into our fraternity, thou must not scruple to act any villainies which thou shalt be able to perform, whether it be to nip a bung, bite the Peter Cloy, the lurries crash, either a bleating cheat, cackling cheat, grunting cheat, quacking cheat, Tib-oth-buttery, Margery Prater.’.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Quacking Cheat a Duck.
1707		‘Rum-Mort’s Praise of Her Faithless Maunder’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 36: [as cit. 1637].
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) I [as cit. c.1698].
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 105: [as cit. 1684].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 16: Duck – Quacking-cheat.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 63: Quacking Cheat, a duck.