Antedating? of "shot his wad" 1896

[Jonathon Green]

> Quite so.  For example, from reading My Secret Life by "Walter,"
> published in parts 1888-1894, I learned that "punk," which is an
> insulting term for a male homosexual in BE, was used as a term for a
> female prostitute in Victorian England.
>
> -Wilson Gray

Punk = whore dates to c.1570 and flourished in the late 16C-early 18C.
Walter's use is almost anachronistic: it was virtually gone by 1890,
though it very occasionally appears up to the 1920s. The meaning underpins
the modern prison use, where inter alia it refers to a (gay) young inmate
used for sex, voluntarily or otherwise.

Jonathon Green