Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. absolutely nothing at all.

1919		Stage 17 Apr. 25/6: WILLIAM ELLIOT CURTIS presents THE GO ONE BETTER REVUE, SWEET FANNIE ADAMS In Three Scenes. The Great French Success. As played by (and including) Members of tbe 42nd Divisional Concert Party.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 22: ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ — nothing; vacuity.
1920		Derby Dly Teleg. 27 Jan. 2/4: Described as ‘the go one better’ revue, ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ or ‘San Fari Ann,’ whichever way one reads the posters.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 19: Hon all sides, wot did the soldjers see? ’Y, sweet Fanny Adams!
1930		(con. 1914–18) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier 123: F.A.—Sometimes lengthened into Sweet F.A. or bowdlerized into Sweet Fanny Adams. Used to mean ‘nothing’ where something was expected.
1937		The Two Lesleys ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ 🎵 Sweet F.A.
1938		Eve. Post (Wellington, NZ) 27 Oct. 24/1: That was not [...] the ‘Fanny Adams’ alluded to by soldiers, but ‘sweet Fanny Adams’.
1945		‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ in Mess Songs & Rhymes of the RAAF 27: Now all that is left on the old oak tree / Is SWEET F.A.
1946		K. Amis letter 24 Oct. in Leader (2000) 99: Needless to say, there was sweet fa by me in it.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 124: You got sweet F.A. from that crowd.
1959		F. Norman Fings I i: What you got? You know damn well wot I got – sweet fanny adams.
1960		I. Fleming For Your Eyes Only (1962) 165: For three months of the year I have a fine holiday that costs me just sweet Fatty Arbuckle!
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 101: I feel kinda proud sittin’ here doin’ sweet Fanny Adams.
1965		J. O’Grady Aussie Eng. (1966) 78: S.F.A. Or Sweet F.A. Nothing.
1969		(con. 1913) A.R. Cooper Born to Fight 61: [W]hen I wondered what my pay would be there was an answering chorus of, ‘Sweet F.A.’.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 124: You’ve sweet FA to lose anyway.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 109: Nothing, sweet Fanny Adams, not a sausage.
1982		P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 36: You got me for sweet Fanny Adams.
1988		B. Humphries Complete Barry McKenzie 11: Sweet F.A. That’s what I got for flogging the local drop in this dump.
1999		Indep. Mag. 16 Oct. 35: The expression ‘sweet FA,’ for instance, refers to little Fanny Adams, an eight-year-old girl who was dismembered in a Hampshire hop garden in 1867.
1999		I. Rankin Dead Souls 156: It seems like a lot of hard work and sweet FA to show for it.
2001		J. King White Trash 258: Nurses [...] lend a helping hand and get sweet FA in return.
2003		Indep. Rev. 1 Oct. 5: I have Sweet Fanny Adams left in my wallet.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 58/2: [The books] have sweet Fatty Arbuckle to do with your genuine article skinheads.
2009		P. Temple Truth 53: Chief Commissioner David Gillam, the so-called new broom, done nothing except sweep the dirt around and under the carpet. Achieved sweet fanny.
2016		in Guardian 2 Aug. 🌐 Trumps mission is to rescue America from the evil that is Clinton. Obama has done sweet FA in 8 years, Clinton will just carry that on whilst quietly raping the coffers.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] ‘Then we [...] get a court order to sell the factory and the land, and distribute any proceeds. But it would be cents in the dollar. Sweet FA’.
2019		A. Parks February’s Son 108: ‘Believe me, one drunken shag counts for sweet FA’.

2. the buttocks, the posterior [play on fanny n.¹ (3)].

1938

J. Curtis They Drive by Night 275: All I got to do is weigh up when the topper’s likely to get to work and give a jump into the air. Well, down I come on sweet fanny adams and break my bleeding neck. It’s me who’s killed myself.

3. nonsense; as an excl.: rubbish! piffle!

1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 78: Never, definitely never, have I heard such a load of Sweet Fanny Adams as this horrible man comes out with.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 139: Practical jokers, sweet Fanny Adams!
1967		J. Hibberd White with Wire Wheels (1973) 215: Sweet Fanny Adams.