"pussy," adj. = weak; effeminate; cowardly; unmanly; soft or easy enough for women, but unbefitting a man.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Head for Memory Lane on this one, rounders.

1. OED does a poor job here because of the interference of "pussy-cat."  No Time for explanation here, but a pondering of the printed evidence will show what I mean.

2. I have an incredibly early 1923 ex. from Jean Toomer's novel _Cane_, referring to a "pussy Sunday-school masqueradin' under a regular name," whose appearance in print at that date seems to be explicable only through a presumably naive association with "pussycat."  Any other explanations plausible ? In other words, is there any reason *not* to consider this as representing current usage ?

3. In 1969, the word becomes common in print, presumably owing to the relaxed attitude toward publishing previously taboo language.

                a.  The sources strongly suggest that the word, so used, originated in Black English.  Comments ?

               b. Can anyone offer strong testimonial evidence that they were quite familiar with the adj. before the late 1960s ?  (FWIW, I haven't found this usage in a single autobiographical novel or memoir of WWII, no matter how recently published, suggesting that most white guys, who are, almost exclusively, the authors of such works, scarcely knew or used the term sixty-odd years ago.)

4. Same questions and comments go for "pussy," n., = sissy, coward, weakling, etc.

5. For the fellow geezers who can even remember so far back, was there ever the slightest doubt in your mind that these uses of "pussy" had *nothing whatever* to with little kitty cats?

I'm editing the whole pussy nexus (as Henry Miller might have said) and don't want to look like a nincompoop (as Francis Grose might have said) when HDAS III appears.

JL

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