Antedating of "Billionaire"

[Fred Shapiro]

billionaire (OED 1861)

1855 Fred Folio _Lucy Boston_ 305  My offspring, so nobly descended, so
exquisitely beautiful and accomplished, shall never so tarnish their
ancestral escutcheon as to become the 'ladies' of any thing less than
billionaires.


Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
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