1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 191. Well, of all
the gammies you are the gammiest, Slowboy, to go and string
yourself to a woman, when you might have had the pick of Melbourne.
Adj. (tramps’).—1. Bad; impossible. Applied to householders of whom it
is known that nothing can be got. See Beggars’ Marks. Gammy-vial = a
town in which the police will not allow unlicensed hawking. (Vial =
Fr., Ville).
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, Glossary, s.v.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., i., 466. No villages that are in any
way gammy are ever mentioned in these papers. Ibid., i., 404. These
are left by one of the school at the houses of the gentry, a mark
being placed on the door post of such as are bone or gammy, in
order to inform the rest of ‘the school’ where to call, and what
houses to avoid.
2. Forged; false; spurious: as a gammy-moneker = a forged signature;
gammy-lour = counterfeit money, etc.
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, s.v.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant (3rd. ed.), p. 445. Spurious
medicine, gammy stuff, bad coin, gammy lower, p. 446.
1889. C. T. Clarkson and J. Hall Richardson, Police, p. 321. Bad
money (coin).... Gammy lower.