Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (usu. US) enthusiastic, excited, esp. in the context of college students cheering a team; thus rah-rah boy, rah-rah girl, students imbued with college spirit; rah-material, a freshman; rah-rahism n., enthusiasm.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 28: He had attended the academy himself and he did not like the reference to ‘rah-rah boys’.
1907		J. Corbin Cave Man 14: I once heard a ticket chopper in the Subway call a gang of undergraduates ‘rah-rah boys’.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 48: Bunches of rah-rah boys wanting to cross and Canadians waiting to get back.
1918		Elyria (OH) Eve. Telegram 19 Oct. 4/4: A Lively Lad was being Tried out for the Job in That Garden, A rah-rah Rustler just off the campus.
1921		N. Putnam West Broadway 137: I had always rather thought the rah-rah stuff was confined to boys.
1924		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 18 July [synd. col.] It swirls with the froth of Broadway life – [...] the one-flight tailors, the rah-rah boys, the chorus girls [etc.].
1929		(con. 1917–18) C. MacArthur War Bugs 35: The boys were getting pretty sick of the rah-rah stuff.
1930		Chicago Daily Maroon 9 Dec. 4/1: Students engage in rah-rahism because it gives them a certain simple amount of enjoyment [DA].
1930		K. Brush Young Man of Manhattan 113: She looked about seventeen years old, ‘and,’ thought Toby with fond paternal amusement, ‘very rah-rah’.
1938		C. Beaton Cecil Beaton’s N.Y. 63: The American expression ‘Rah-Rah Boy’ is used to describe a certain type of college youth who watches football-games in a big fur coat and a pork-pie hat.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act I: That is a Yale hymn, and they’re given to rah-rah exaggeration at New Haven.
1947		M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl. n.p.: Rah-material ... Freshman.
1958		T. Capote ‘House Of Flowers’ in Breakfast at Tiffany’s 106: On rah-rah weekends, when drums sounded at the rising moon, she sat at her window.
1959		L.P. Boone ‘Gator Sl.’ AS XXXIV:2 154: Girls who talk constantly about, associate with, and want to date only athletic stars are rah-rah [...] girls.
1963		F. Kohner Affairs of Gidget 61: It’s not only that I’m lacking in the old rah-rah spirit.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 257: Send everyone opening-day wires. Make it rah-rah.
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 12: The same team had [...] won every grand final. Rugby Union, but not rah-rah boys.
1999		Guardian Guide 20–26 Nov. 12: Marketing whizz-kids and other rah-rah merchants of the most insidious kind.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] Trust me [...] it will get handled, just not on that rah-rah shit, a’ight?

2. upper class, esp. British.

1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 53: We can’t bank on the rah-rah boys that wear eyeglasses and condescend to like us.
1983		K. Hudson Lang. of the Teenage Revolution 8: Girls who arrive with a ‘rah-rah’ accent are teased into toning it down.
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 235: ‘Ol’ Winthrop is one of them rah-rah all-American types’.

3. (Aus.) pertaining to college or university.

1998

R.G. Barrett Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] [H]ard-looking men who probably wouldn’t take too kindly to some mug and his trendy-looking tart in her rah-rah sweatshirt.