1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1812. Letter quoted in Notes and Queries, 6 S., ix., 10. My company is now forming into an invalid company. Tell your grandmother we will be like the Castle foggies.
1855. Thackeray, The Ballad of Bouillabaisse. When first I saw ye, cari luoghi, I’d scarce a beard upon my face, And now, a grizzled, grim old fogy, I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.
1864. Tangled Talk, p. 104. An old fogey, who particularly hated being ‘done.’
1867. Nesmith, ‘Reminiscences of Dr. Anthon,’ in The Galaxy, Sept., p. 611. The adherents of ‘progress’ mostly regard classics as old fogey, and ‘see no use’ in the laborious years which youth spend upon them.
1883. James Payn, The Canon’s Ward, ch. xv. ‘He would have preferred some bookish sneak like Adair, or some old fogey like Mavors.’
1888. Sporting Life, 10 Dec. So it is with the sister art of music, for I (myself something of an old fogey in such matters).
So also fogeyish = old-fashioned; eccentric. Fogeydom = the state of fogeyishness; and fogeyism = a characteristic of Fogeydom. [[49]]
1877. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. i. They repaired arm-in-arm to their club—the Renaissance, now past its prime, and a little fogyish.
1883. Saturday Review, 31 March, p. 403, col. 1. Not the least among the pleasures of fogeydom, so ably depicted by Thackeray, is the confidence that it inspires in the hearts of the fairer sex.