1848 G. W. M. Reynolds Myst. London IV. cxcv. 369/1 I have got my own clasp-knife..and a small jimmey.

1854 Alta California (San Francisco) 23 Feb. 2/2 Officer Powers,..upon examining the lock, found it had been broken open with a ‘jimmy’.

1904 G. H. Lorimer Old Gorgon Graham viii. 159 You can't break a big merchant with a jimmy and a stick of dynamite.

1973 ‘E. McBain’ Let's hear It xiii. 194 The patrolman..was examining a door and jamb for jimmy marks.

1973 P. B. Austin tr. M. Sjöwall & P. Wahlöö Locked Room v. 24 The door was equipped with a jimmy-proof lock.

1973 P. B. Austin tr. M. Sjöwall & P. Wahlöö Locked Room xxiii. 186 [He] had brought with him every thinkable jimmy and other tool for opening the door.

1893 J. Hawthorne Confessions of Convict iii. 49 We took the safe..and carried it..to the basement... We jimmied it open in no time.

1893 J. Hawthorne Confessions of Convict xi. 172 I have drilled holes in large safes so accurately that the bolts could be ‘jimmied’ without leaving a mark.

1905 N.Y. Evening Post 22 Dec. 3 The thieves jimmied the front door.

1922 R. Parrish Case & Girl xxxii. 247 Finally we jimmied open the back door of this garage.

1973 Sat. Rev. Society (U.S.) May 42/2 Any attempt to jimmy the doors, hood, or trunk will cause the horn to begin sounding.

1845 E. J. Wakefield Adventure in N.Z. I. xi. 337 The profound contempt which the whaler expresses for the ‘lubber of a jimmy-grant’, as he calls the emigrant.

1850 McLean Papers VIII. 177 (MS.) I consider Davy has done a foolish thing in selling his farm... I am glad it has not as usual fallen into the hands of ‘Jimmies’, usurpers of the soil.

1859 H. Kingsley Recoll. Geoffry Hamlyn II. ix. 154 ‘What are these men that we are going to see?’ ‘Why one,’ said Lee, ‘is a young Jimmy (I beg your pardon, sir, an emigrant), the other two are old prisoners.’

1867 Cassell's Mag. 2 440/2 I never wanted to leave England... I wasn't like one of these Jemmy Grants.

1878 A. Aylward Transvaal of To-day xi. 216 I was a raw emigrant, and still what Natalians call a ‘Jimmy’.

1922 Daily Mail 11 Dec. 8 With his wife and child he had just come over as a ‘Jimmie-grant’.

1948 F. Irvine-Smith Streets of my City ii. 32 At the close of 1840, there were 2,500 settlers, or in whaler parlance, ‘Jimmy Grants’, upon its shores.

1849 H. Melville Redburn ix. 68 He in the rudest kind of manner laughed aloud in my face, and called me a ‘Jimmy Dux’.

1850 H. Melville White-jacket iii. 16 These fellows are all Jimmy Duxes—sorry chaps, who never put foot in ratlin, or venture above the bulwarks.

1890 R. C. Leslie Old Sea Wings xiii. 177 The ship's butcher and his mate, ‘Jemmy Ducks’, formed an important part of the economy of our old East Indiamen.

1890 R. C. Leslie Old Sea Wings xiii. 182 A gay rooster, after an exciting chase round the decks by Jemmy Ducks, escaped overboard.

1928 J. Mason Before Mast in Sailing Ships 13 One of our men had deserted an Orient Liner in Sydney, and had been a ‘Jimmy Ducks’ on that vessel.

1938 W. E. Dexter Rope-yarns v. 32 ‘Sails’ or ‘Jimmy Ducks’ was the first one to get round.

1887 Colonial & Indian Exhib., London 1886: Rep. Colonial Sections 428 Jimmy Low is usually a large tree, yielding timber of a rich red colour.

1888 F. M. Bailey Queensland Woods 65 ‘Jimmy Low’. Forest Mahogany of N.S.W. Usually a very large tree with a rough, reddish, fibrous bark.

1889 J. H. Maiden Useful Native Plants Austral. 508 Other names for it are ‘Red Gum’, ‘Grey gum’, ‘Hickory’, and it perpetuates the memory of an individual by being called ‘Jimmy Low’.

1904 J. H. Maiden Forest Flora New S. Wales I. 67 In Queensland it [sc. Eucalyptus resinifera] is often called ‘Jimmy Low’, after the late Mr. James Low, of Maroochie River, a locality for some of the finest specimens in that State.

1945 S. J. Baker Austral. Lang. xii. 215 Among popular names for various trees noted by Morris were Jemmy Donnelly, Jimmy Low and Roger Gough.

1892 B. H. Boake in Bulletin (Sydney) 7 May 15/1 At the thought the heart beats quicker Than an old Bohemian's should... Bah! I'll go and have a liquor With the genial ‘Jimmy Wood’.

1898 B. H. Boake in Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. Red Page/2 The use of Christian names in this form of slang seems to have originated the Australian..Jimmy-Woodser, a solitary drinker.

1900 H. Lawson Verses Pop. & Humorous 67 The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar, Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown.

1928 J. Devanny Dawn Beloved ii. xxxiv. 307 Duke preferred to drink alone.., Jimmy Woods-ing, as the miners called it.

1930 Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Feb. 51/4 ‘You have your holiday.’‘Oh, no,’ she told him..‘I'm getting too old for Jimmy Woodsers, thanks.’

1933 Press (Christchurch, N.Z.) 28 Oct. 17/7 Jimmy or Johnny Woodser, slang. A drink by yourself. It is a common expression up-country in New Zealand.

1942 N.Z.E.F. Times (2nd N.Z. Expeditionary Force) 21 Dec. 18/2 You'll find me lonesome in a Naafi, a-drinkin' to me sins, A-sippin' like a Jimmy Woodser.

1945 S. J. Baker Austral. Lang. ix. 171 A Jimmy Woodser is not only a lone drinker, but also a drink consumed by such a person.

1957 D. Niland Call me when Cross turns Over i. 9 I'm a real Jimmy Woodser now. On my own. The first bird on the family tree and the last.

1899 A. E. W. Mason Miranda of Balcony xv. 206 I want one thousand jimmies per annum.

1931 T. H. Dey Leaves from Bookmaker's Bk. xi. 180 Here's another story of a lost ‘Jimmy o' Goblin’.

1932 D. L. Sayers Have his Carcase xi. 128 Three hundred golden sovereigns... Three hundred round, golden jimmy o' goblins.

1934 E. Waugh Handful of Dust ii. 35 He had won five Jimmy-o-goblins at ten to three at Chester.

1956 C. Smith Deadly Reaper xiv. 108 Her first husband left her half a million. Yes, sir, five hundred thousand jimmy o'goblins.

1959 Spectator 3 July 5/2 The proposed sale of the Watford firm S. G. Brown Ltd., at present owned by the Admiralty..is a most unlikely haunt of businessmen, if the thirty-eight million jimmy-o'goblins they were wasting on obsolete warships a month or so ago is anything to go by.

1967 C. Watson Lonelyheart 4122 xv. 149 ‘The money's paid in—five hundred nice shiny Jimmy O'goblins.’ (Dear God! Where had she last come across that one? Sapper? Henty?)

1973 Times 28 June 16/2 He..had made a profit of some six million jimmy-o-goblins.

1916 ‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin viii. 147 Th' Bloke, an' Jimmy the One, an' most o' th' other orficers made a bit too.

1935 P. G. Wodehouse Luck of Bodkins viii. 80 ‘By rights I ought to just go to Jimmy the One.’..‘The chief steward, sir?’

1945 Penguin New Writing 23 49 The ship's company know what is coming. Jimmy the One is going to give us a pep talk. Tons of flannel.

1953 E. Hyams Gentian Violet v. 76 He became second in command of a very old destroyer and as such he was perhaps the only Jimmy-the-One in the Royal Navy who was not detested by the ship's company.

1962 ‘E. Peters’ Funeral of Figaro i. 10 He was..used to being Number One or Jimmy the One [in a theatre].

1970 Guardian 19 Aug. 16/8 Smith told Petty Officer David Lewis, ‘We are going to have a sit-in and give the “Jimmy” a hard time.’

1913 E. K. Chatterton Ships & Ways of Other Days xii. 265 The reader will remember we called attention some time back to those spritsails which seem so curious to us moderns. They were also known as ‘water sails’ and as ‘Jimmy Greens’, both appellations being due, obviously, to the unhappy knack they possessed of scooping up the sea.

1933 Sea Breezes XVII. 186 A ‘Jimmy Green’ was set along the bowsprit and jibboom under the head sails.

1944 J. Masefield New Chum 155 Once one came by with an odd triangular yardless topsail, then, very rare, but now in use again. We were told that it would be called a Jimmy Green if set above a royal.

1937 in E. Partridge Dict. Slang

1959 R. Fuller Ruined Boys i. 10 Come and have a Jimmy Riddle.

1964 J. Symons End of Solomon Grundy i. ii. 34 I must do a Jimmy Riddle before I go.

1966 ‘L. Lane’ ABZ of Scouse 56 Said of a person with a weak bladder: 'e's got ther jimmy riddles.

1971 D. Clark Sick to Death vii. 154 Mrs D. was in there having a jimmy.

1937 E. Hill Great Austral. Loneliness xl. 301 A weird figure in a flour-bag, Jimmie Howe, with shoes of raw-hide laced with pandanus, Leng carried no luggage.