b. 1766, d. 1823. Bloomfield, Richard and Kate. But now, as at some
nobler places Amongst the leaders ’twas decreed Time to begin the
dicky races, More famed for laughter than for speed.
1841. John Mills, Old Eng. Gentleman, ch. vii., p. 60 (3rd ed.). A
young dickey, in the full kick of youth, mistook some sweet briar
for a thistle.
3. (common).—A sham shirt front, formerly a worn-out shirt. Cf., sense
4. [Hotten: originally tommy (from the Greek, τομη, a section), a word
once used in Trinity College, Dublin.] Also, by implication, any sham
contrivance; see quots.
1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 82, note. Dickey: cant for a
worn-out shirt.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. A sham shirt.
1835–40. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. ix. She made frill,
shirt-collar, and Dicky fly like snow.
1836. Willis Gayford Clarke, The Olla Podriana Papers. For a
handkerchief I had flourished a common dickey, the strings whereof
fell to my feet.
1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xx. Those wretched Beaux
Tibbs’s of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing besides.
1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 206. Do not take off that
article of apparel which Fanny Fern distinguishes by a name which,
on this side the Atlantic, is the familiar for a youthful Richard.
Spare it, we say ... although it may be (and we guess, from the
absence of cuffs and sleeves, it is) an imitation, a sham, a
make-shift!
1872. Public Opinion, 24 Feb., p. 241. ‘Inside Newgate.’ What is
she here for? I asked, pointing to a florid-looking girl who was
taking a deep professional interest in ironing a dickey.
1876. Jas. Greenwood, Low Life Deeps. ‘I saw a laden waggon bearing
the name of one of the cheap advertising firms you speak of.’...
‘Ah, bearing the name ... you saw a waggon wearing a dicky, you
mean—a false front-plate with a name on it which slips on and off
like them on the wans that the pianoforte-makers borrow.’
1883. Jas. Greenwood, ‘Veteran of Vauxhall,’ in Odd People in Odd
Places, p. 38. Besides these articles there was a pair of what had
once been white linen cuffs, a dickey of the same dubious
complexion, and a white tie.