1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, v. As you have your high-fliers at Almack’s, at the West End, we have also some ‘choice creatures’ at our All Max in the East.
1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v. High-flyers—women of the town, in keeping, who job a coach, or keep a couple of saddle-horses at least.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, (Ed. 1854) p. 75. Howsomever, the high-flyers doesn’t like him; and when he takes people’s money, he need not be quite so cross about it!
1860. Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, xxii., p. 131. The old room on the ground floor where the passengers of the High-flyers used to dine.
1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, i., 5. Mrs. Boffin, Wegg … is a ’ighflyer at fashion.
1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. 40. Foller yer leader, … all who can carry sufficient skyscrapers to keep in the ’unt, with that ’ighflyer ’Arry.
4. (thieves’).—A beggar with a certain style; a begging-letter writer; a broken swell.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 268. While pursuing the course of a high-flyer (genteel beggar).
1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. III., ch. iii., p. 268. He was a high-flier, a genteel beggar.
1887. Standard, 20 June, p. 5, c. 2. The pretended noblemen and knights who ‘say they have suffered by war, fire, or captivity, or have been driven away, and lost all they had,’ are still represented by the high-flyers or broken-down gentlemen.