subs. (once literary: now vulgar).—A person; an individual. See COVE.—BAILEY (1744).
1542. UDALL, The Apophthegmes of Erasmus [ROBERTS, 1877], 325. Please all PARTIES veray well [PARTY = homo occurs passim].
1598. JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, iv. 9. See where the PARTY comes you must arrest; serve it upon him quickly.
1538. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Zuccoli. We vse also to say so, when speaking of anybody in secrecie, and the PARTIE comes in.
1609. SHAKESPEARE, Tempest, iii. 2. Canst thou bring me to the PARTY?
1837. The Comic Almanack, 103. A werry slap-up PARTY, I assure you.
1852. DICKENS, Bleak House, xxii. My little woman … attends the Evening Exertions … of a reverend PARTY of the name of Chadband.
1864. YATES, Broken to Harness, xxxiii. Mr. Schröder … a good old cock, sir; a worthy old PARTY; kind-hearted, and all that.
1885. Daily Telegraph, 25 Aug. The seedy-looking old PARTY … may be worth a million of money.
1895. KATHLEEN M. CAFFYN, A Comedy in Spasms, I. He had dropped into the nursery shortly after luncheon, and finding it deserted had strayed out into the courtyard beyond, where he had stumbled on an ecstatic PARTY, nearly naked.
