[Ads-l] "trap-setter" 1714 antedates OED2 1903--

[Joel Berson]

[1714] _My son, fear thou the Lord ..._ [broadside] 2.

"... they will not shew themselves to be sillier than a Bird; in suffering themselves to be taking by a Trap, set, in their sight to catch them; and into which if they once get, there, they and their Posterity must for ever remain and kept fast, for the pleasure and profit of the TRAP-SETTERS."

Antedates "trap-setter" OED2 under "trap n.1" 1903--.

Early American Imprints; excessive commas in original.  For evidence of dating, see Colonial Society of Massachusetts, _Publications_ (1904--1906), 10:345--352.  The Boston Athenaeum's copy is (or was) bound between two newspapers of 1714.

There are other antedatings of 1903 in Google Books.  The earliest I see is 1817:  Samuel Roberts, _The State Lottery: A Dream_,p. 82.


Joel


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