"tough luck" (1876) was Re: antedatings: "tough luck," "oohs and ahs"

[Joanne M. Despres]

The Collegiate's 1876 date is backed by a quotation that appears in
Mitford Mathews' Dictionary of American English, William Craigie's
Dictionary of Americanisms, and Farmer & Henley's Dictionary of
Slang; it reads:

1876 N.Y. Tribune 23 Dec. 6/4  If the State of Connecticut . . . had
any apprehensions lest . . . their representatives . . . might be
'intimidated, or 'bulldosed,' or 'terrorized' [etc.]

FYI, the company's citation file wouldn't normally have anything
that early.  The oldest cites in the file usually only go back to the
very last years of the nineteenth century.

Joanne Despres
Merriam-Webster