Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also jigg) sexual intercourse; often as double entendre with dance.

c.1610–20		‘Why Do You Trifle?’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) V 8: No child is fonder of the Gig / Than I to dance a merry jig; / Faine would I try how I could (frig) / Up and downe, up and downe, up and downe.
1627		‘Blynd Eates many a Flye’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1897) VIII 685: If a Country Girl do chance to dance, and by that Jig be undone, She quickly is made whole again, by some Tradesmen in London.
c.1650		‘Merry Bag-Pipes’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) V 158: Come play me this very Jigg once more, and never doubt but I’ll Dance to thee.
c.1660		‘The Dub’d Knight’ in Euing Broadside Ballads No. 19: When the Jig was ended, the Lady threw down / Unto her good Serving-man seven-score pound. She gave this Gold freely [...] that he will but Ride in the Saddle again.
1672–96		‘Sweet Williams Kindness’ in Williams (1994) II 737: You all must trounced be but I, But I’m resolv’d e’re hence you stir, To dance a jigg with you kind Sir.
1682–1700		‘Seamans Lamentation’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) IV 194: The Captain ... with my wife did dance a jigg.
1694		J. Crowne Married Beau II i: I am stung with a wanton Tarantula, and shall never be cur’d till I hear my Wedding Fiddle: and have danc’d a Jig with a Husband i’Bed.
a.1700		‘Old Maid’s Relief’ in Williams (1994) II 737: Belly to belly he danc’d a fine jig.
1715		‘Nickydemus Ninnyhammer’ Homer in a nut-shell 64: So charming looks the am’rous Prig, / My old Chops water for a Jig.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 109: I down’d with my Breeches and off with my Whigg, And we fell a Dancing the Irish Jigg.
c.1720		‘Original Black Joke. Sent from Dublin’ 🎵 With her he began to dance a jig.
c.1731		Merry-Thought III 5: Debauch’d by Henry Rig, Who gave me a Jigg, But not one Grigg: Howe’er he ran his Rigg.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 133: If one survives to dance a jig / With that bewitching female Helen.
1861		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 12 Oct. 8/4: [E]ndeavouring to get his girl down the back stairs to give her a lesson in a ‘new jig’ .

2. a joking, mocking nickname for a person.

1844		J.W. Kaye Peregrine Pulteney I 16: T here are so many different dialects, what with ‘snobs,’ and ‘clods,’ and ‘chaws,’ and ‘jigs’.
1887		Lippincott’s Monthly Mag. (Phila.) July 141: Shame on thee to say’t, thou bold-faced jig [F&H].

3. (US campus) a promiscuous man.

1987

Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 4: jig – man who tries to date many women [...] ‘Is it true that Geoff asked you out?’ ‘Yeah, but he’s just a jig – I’m not going.’.