Slay, ?slayed?

[Michael Adams]

"Slayer Slang" records a few instances of "slayed," not just from episodes of the show (though they're represented) but in other texts, like "Teen People" (though the quotation is Buffy-related).

I don't think that the show influenced the use of "slayed" as a term of appreciation, though -- "He slays me" (of a comedian or musician), which I suppose was accompanied by "He slayed me" way back there, somehwere in time.  Is jazz the source?  In "Buffy," by contrast, "slay" really means "kill" and the extensions are things like "Buffy slayed the football." They aren't related to the (earlier) slang sense. Spears include the term in that sense (1989/1995), so it predates the television show, but by how much I can't tell (Spears gives no dates).  If it's in Spears, though, it's probably in DAS3 and dated generally there -- I just can't find my copy under the mounds of books here.

Michael Adams