Shotgun wedding

[Fred Shapiro]

yOn Sat, 10 Nov 2001, Jonathon Green wrote:

> The first citation I have been able to find for the term shotgun wedding
> (var. shotgun marriage) is
>
> 1927 Sinclair Lewis _Elmer Gantry_ 156: There were, in those parts and those
> days, not infrequent ceremonies known as 'shotgun weddings'
>
> 'Those days' refer to the context of Lewis' story: the 1900s. I have yet to
> find any earlier citation than this and the (online) OED has the same first
> cite.

Here is an antedating:

1903 _South Western Reporter_ 75: 985  That was a shotgun wedding, and you
will read something a good deal worse than that.

Fred Shapiro


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