1825 J. Weddell Voy. S. Pole 59 The bird next in size found here is called by sailors a Nelly. It is of the peterel kind.

1832 C. M. Goodridge Narr. Voy. South Seas 20 Various birds..such as the Albatross, Nellys, Peeos, Mollimocks [etc.].

1895 Pall Mall Gaz. 16 Dec. 2/2 Arctic raven and fox..are ten thousand times worse than nelly or albatross.

1949 N.Z. Bird Notes 3 170 In the air, nellies are fine big petrels, and their gliding, purposeful flight is a pleasure to watch; but when a large number are collected and feeding on whale refuse, neither their habit nor their behaviour is calculated to arouse admiration.

1966 R. A. Falla et al. Field Guide Birds N.Z. 35 Giant petrel,..Nelly, stinker, black molly.

1989 P. O'Brian Thirteen-gun Salute v. 160 There's a whale-bird. Two nellies; and a stink-pot.

1991 World Jan. 62/1 We also saw many of the much larger giant petrel, an impressive scavenger known by a variety of nicknames including ‘stinker’, ‘nelly’ and even ‘Antarctic vulture’.

1931 B. Niles Strange Brother x. 196 The police would raid the place, and for a time the ‘Nellies’ would vanish.

1962 Sunday Times 29 Apr. 12/4 See, what you've got to do is get on the same wavelength as the nellies who write in.

1970 K. Platt Pushbutton Butterfly (1971) xvi. 182 He..puffed daintily on a long cigarette as he watched the nellies cruising to the ‘tearoom’.

1973 C. Wittman in P. Brown Radical Psychol. xix. 459 There is a tendency among ‘homophile’ groups to deplore gays who play visible roles—the queens and the nellies.

1988 E. White Beautiful Room is Empty (1989) iii. 56 Of course there were the john fairies, the tearoom nellies.

1990 Sunday Tel. 25 Mar. 34/6 Funny as it may seem for such a soft nellie, he was widely credited with weird powers when it came to cloud formations and that.

2000 A. Sayle Barcelona Plates 161 Whenever there's a couple in our circle that splits up Valentina's always there, offering help, offering advice,..and just let some nelly she knows show the first symptom of Aids.

1935 K. Tennant Tiburon 128 Staines..tenaciously kept a bottle of Nellie's Death out of circulation.]

1941 S. J. Baker Pop. Dict. Austral. Slang 49 Nelly, cheap wine.

1945 S. J. Baker Austral. Lang. ix. 166 Here is a group of indigenous terms used to describe cheap wines: Africa speaks,..nelly, nelly's death [etc.].

1967 A. E. Debenham All Manner of People 84 They spent that..on cheap wine (better known as ‘plonk’, ‘Nellie’, or ‘fourpenny dark’).

1980 J. Hepworth & J. Hindle Boozing out in Melbourne Pubs 15 Other affectionate nicknames for the stuff itself were..nelly [etc.].

1941 New Statesman 30 Aug. 218/3 Not on your Nelly Duff,..not likely.]

1959 H. E. Bates Breath of French Air i. 8 Ma said ‘Not on your nelly’ in a voice very near to severity.

1966 Times 15 May 9 That would mean me investing in another man's career. Not on your Nelly!

1974 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 21 Sept. 35/2 I appear to be giving away most of the plot? Not on your nelly. That's only the beginning.

1989 Melody Maker 23 Dec. 20/2 Not on your nellie... There's no way you're gonna catch us lounging around in a pub all day.

1999 J. Boyle Hero of Underworld 108 ‘Do you get social security money?’.. ‘Not on your Nelly, it would be an albatross around our necks.’

1963 J. M. Fraser Psychol. (ed. 2) xiv. 173 Observation of a skilled operator (often characterized as ‘sitting next to Nellie’).

1966 Guardian 30 July 6/5 The generous ‘General Trainees Scheme’ which allows them to spend up to two years in different departments [of the BBC]—‘sitting with Nellie’, is the union phrase.

1972 Listener 10 Aug. 180/2 Journalists are the casual labourers of the intellectual world... Most training still consists of sitting next to Nellie.

1975 New Society 17 July 130/1 It was then made compulsory for doctors from overseas to ‘sit by Nellie’ for a month. Immigrant doctors had to complete satisfactorily a month's supervision under a consultant supervisor.

1988 D. Vernon Tiller's Girls (BNC) 25 Elsie Parker had ‘lived in’ during her training [as a dancer]... She maintained that you simply stood and watched the other Girls; this was called ‘sitting at the side of Nellie’.

1991 B. Gibbs et al. Reality of Partnership (BNC) Some obvious benefits are almost bound to derive from bringing two organisations together, just as sitting next to Nellie traditionally gradually fused the experience of the expert with the youthful vigour of the apprentice.

1960 Der Kreis June 35 He may reject candidates for his embrace for any of the following reasons: 1. They are too young... 5. They're too Nelly.

1971 Psychiatry 34 187/2 Some guy came up to me and tried to take me for some money, and I knew it, and he said, ‘You know, you're very nellie.’

1972 B. Rodgers Queens' Vernacular 141 Nelly..outrageously effeminate; coy, silly.

1980 Maledicta 1979 3 247 The Polk Street people are nelly (or nellie) and effeminate.

1984 A. Maupin Babycakes viii. 30 That's the nelliest thing that's ever been said in Death Valley.

1991 ff Mag. Spring 19/1 The nelliest venue in the entire universe.