A dude, according to contemporary sources, was a man of many affectations. Even a small town dude would speak with drawl which was something of a mix of English and Bostonian. Most sentences began with “I say”, ended with “don’t chew know” and questions were answered with “raaather”. Though he looked and spoke as if he’d just stepped from Pall Mall, he’d probably never been to London at all. 

You’d find him wearing extremely tight (with the cuffs rolled up) or extremely loose pants (tucked into his boots), red (or any other loudly coloured) lacquered shoes or excessively polished black boots, spotless gloves, and a tall silk hat on a jaunty angle. A monocle was optional but he’d go nowhere without his fancy cane. When said cane was not in his mouth, a cigarette was dangling there. He always had a flower with a long stem in his buttonhole, lilies being most popular. His mustache was curled to perfection. His hair was either curled, or cut short but with bangs. His collar would be tall. If it were scarf weather, his pearl scarf pin would secure it in just the right spot.

They were most populous in New York, Boston and Chicago, although they’d follow the 400 to Newport or where ever else fashion decreed when summer came. 

All of this would be fine, said the editors, but a dude rarely worked - certainly not in any trade, but usually not at all. Most had money, but if not, they’d trade on real or fabricated family connections. He’d spend his day lounging from one lady’s house to another, or standing on street corners, or looking out the window of his club or Delmonico’s, sucking on the knob of his cane, and staring at passing girls. He was extremely vain and socially ambitious, his conversation vapid, and he acted as if he was a member of some imaginary aristocracy. He thought he was God’s gift to women and could be a masher, if he bothered.

Dandies, on the other hand, though they were also always well dressed and at the peak of fashion, were respectable: they had brains (and a job), and knew when to leave the ladies alone. Dandy’s like Bryon and Brummell, had they been American, would not have been considered dudes.

Later iterations in the 1910s and 1920s were called lounge lizards, jellybeans, bun dusters, drugstore cowboys and cake eaters. Around the 1920s the term dude came to define a city man who visited more rustic locals and stuck out like a sore thumb.

The Winnipeg Tribune, Manitoba, July 16, 1890