Antedating of "Gimmick"?

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Sun Feb 15 17:13:16 UTC 2004


I'm not sure what the usage means here, but this may be an antedating of
the word "gimmick":


gimmick (OED 1925, HDAS 1922)

1920 _Wash. Post_ 6 Oct. 12 (ProQuest)  World Series Notes ... An
overcoatless one [baseball fan without an overcoat] produced a capacious
"medicine" bottle from his hip and drank ostentatiously.  Instantly from
every side came calls of "Frank," "ohn," "Charley," "Archibald" et al.
"Gimmick" brought immediate recognition, but nothing from the
prescription.

Fred Shapiro


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