Definition of "rowdy"
rowdy
adjective
comparative rowdier, superlative rowdiest
noun
plural rowdies
(Victorian slang) money; ready money.
Quotations
I don’t know whether I quite approve of your throwing over Mr. P. for Mr. F., and don’t think Foker’s such a pretty name, and from your account of him he seems a muff, and not a beauty. But he has got the rowdy, which is the thing.
1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 76, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850
The blessing of the priest converts flesh into fish; the skil of the resataurateur changes pet pussies into favourite dishes; the learning of the consmetic-chemist metamorphoses age into youth; the wisdom of Solomen Isaacs transmogrifies old garments into now; the tact of the lawyer makes the worse appear the better cause; and the magic spell of the ready—otherwise know as money, cash, tin, stuff, rhino, root-of-all-evil, blunt, wherewithal, 'rowdy, funds, stumpy, pecuniary, dibs, hard, browns, heavy, mopusses, slugs, shiners, lucre, or 'the filthy,' dust, gelt, chips, lumps, chinkers, mint-drops, pewter, brass, horsenails, rocks, brads, spondulix, needful, dough, spoons, buttons, dimes, or the infallible— will convert every article and item in that old sole-leather into "duty free."
1855, Charles Godfrey Leland, chapter 22, in Meister Karl's Sketch-Book, Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan, page 166