1616 B. Jonson Love Restored in Wks. 990 The rogue play-boy that acts Cvpid, is got so hoarse, your maiestie cannot heare him.

1621 M. Wroth Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania i. 60 He had seene a delicate play-boy acte a louing womans part.

1631 B. Jonson New Inne i. iii. 5 Pretty boy! Goes he to schoole?.. He prates Latine And 'twere a parrat, or a play-boy.

1829 G. Griffin Collegians viii. 161 The pretty Syl repeatedly told him that he was ‘a funny gentleman’ and ‘a great play-boy’.

1898 J. MacManus Bend of Road 107 The divil sittin cheek be jowl with him in his own chimbley corner!..an' himself an' the playboy shoughed out o' the same pipe!

1907 J. M. Synge Playboy of Western World ii. 51 You're the walking playboy of the western world.

1922 W. Lewis in Eng. Rev. Apr. 394 He, the play-boy, the pleasure-man, dreams the day away while the stern surgeon stands in the operating theatre cutting off legs.

1936 M. de la Roche Whiteoak Harvest xi. 160 No matter how hard I worked I was looked on as a sort of playboy who couldn't do a man's job.

1960 P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves in Offing vi. 60 A New York playboy, accustomed from his earliest years to pursue blondes like a bloodhound.

1992 N.Y. Times 18 Feb. b11/3 Arriving here by helicopter..for Tuesday's giant slalom, the Italian champion promptly announced that he was changing his playboy life style in deference to the pursuit of Olympic gold.

1934 Times 27 July 12/2 A little pleasant fooling with the small change of playboyism.

2001 Western Morning News (Plymouth) (Nexis) 10 Oct. 11 The investment world shows that beneath a thin veneer of playboyism, there lurks a childlike belief in the cradle of the state.

1950 Nevada State Jrnl. 17 May 4/6 Instead of spending seven or eight months a year playboying around the globe in his ultra-expensive yacht.

1963 V. Canning Limbo Line xvi. 218 Who wanted money? Amadeo to playboy around?

1984 Observer 8 Apr. 41/2 Another who called his wife ‘the titless wonder’ to justify playboying around with other girls.

1999 Irish Times (Nexis) 23 Jan. (Weekend Suppl.) 66 The 60 million dollar man continued playboying with his long-time Swedish squeeze, Gaby.