fancy n.1
1. the vagina.
 | Longus 124: [She] directed him to her Fancie, the place so long desired and sought. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Wandring Whore I 13: Catching hold of his trap-stick, she, (when she saw him stiff and strong, and itching to be at her,) taught the unskilful rustick to loose his maidenhead by guiding him to her fancy. | |
| Rambling Fuddle-Caps 3: And as for the Rudders that steer our Affections, As Fancy, that Pilot, shall give ’em directions. | |
| ‘I’d Be a Member Mug’ in Flash Olio in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 203: I’d be a member-mug, up in a chamber, / Where wim wams, and fancy’s, and jokesses meet . |
2. a girlfriend; a mistress; a desirable girl.
| Life in London (1869) 190: The extravagant Fancy [...] trying to take the shine out of all the other females in the circle, merely to show the taste and liberality of her keeper. | |
| London Life 7 June 6/2: So while their peers are fondling with their ‘fancies,’ they are flirting with their ‘flames’. | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 53: Caprice, m. A lover or mistress; ‘a fancy’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 30 July 14/2: ’Ow’s th’ fancy?’ Ponto spat viciously. ‘T’ ’ell with th’ fancy! She’s been ’n’ slung me.’. |
3. (US) a prostitute.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | (con. 1870s) Why the West was Wild 14: The names by which the frontiersmen referred to the ladies in question [...] soiled doves, fancies, calico queens. |
4. see fancy man n.1
In compounds
see under bit n.1
1. (UK und.) a public house that offers facilities for gambling.
| Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: This house is notorious as the first ‘fancy house’ in London for dogs, sparring, and rat-killing. [...] the landlord, too, is a right’un. |
2. (US) a whore-house, a house of ill-repute, a brothel.
| Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 8 Oct. n.p.: He became too lazy to work and ‘turned out’ as a pimp for a low ‘fancy house’. | |
| ‘Couldn’t Stand the Press’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 95: I went in a fancy house, / But still I had ill luck. | |
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 218: Perhaps [...] he prefers visiting one of the fashionable bagnios. Your roper and sharper is at home there; he knows all about the principal fancy houses, and is personally acquainted with all the inmates. | |
| ‘Word-List from Hampstead, N.H.’ in DN III iii 187: fancy house, n. A house of bad repute. | |
| Scarlet Pansy 136: I don’t have to be bought like a flossy dame in a fancy house. | |
| Maledicta IX 148: The compilers ought to have looked farther afield and found: […] fancy house, fleshpot, gaff. | |
| (con. 1940s) Hold Tight (1990) 67: ‘Getting arrested didn’t cure you of whorehouses, boy?’ ‘Me and fancy houses suit each other fine.’. |
1. prostitution; thus take in fancy work v., to work secretly as a prostitute.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
2. sexual intercourse.
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 170: Labeur, m. The sexual embrace; ‘fancy-work’. |
3. the (usu. male) genitals and pubic hair.
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. |