"fiend": in anyone's active vocab?

[Mark A. Mandel]

"Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
    >>>>>

There is, I think, "coffee fiend" in "Barnaby", by Crockett Johnson,
1943.  (Barnaby, Mr. O'Malley, and their ghost friend are
investigating a house supposed to be haunted, and think they've come
upon coffee fiends.  Actually, they are wartime black marketeers,
trafficking in coffee.

 <<<<<

Yes, indeed, and that was my first encounter with the phrase, perhaps circa
1954. Gus the ghost is extremely shy and is almost as frightened by the
crooks as they are by him.

-- Mark
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]