shindig

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 21:17:12 -0500, Michael McKernan
<mckernan at LOCALNET.COM> wrote:

>I evidently missed the previous post on 'shindig' but if it matters to
>anyone, I have the following citation handy:
>
>Saturday, December 21, 1878 Rochester Indiana The Rochester Sentinel
>> Last week a shindig was given at Widow DICKERHOFF's in honor of one
>>NEAISWANGER...
>http://www.fulco.lib.in.us/genealogy/Tombaugh/Newspaper%20Excerpts/Html/Newspape
>rs%201878.htm
>
>If I have this, without ever having looked for it (before), surely someone
>else has found something earlier...please let me know, since I don't have
>any of the standard references handy.

OED2 has an 1871 cite from Bret Harte for the 'country dance' sense.
(There's an obsolete sense, 'a blow on the shins', attested in 1859.)  But
the American Periodical Series takes it back at least to 1848:

----
1848 _The John-Donkey_ 14 Oct. 111/2 She desired to have a shin-dig, or
dress ball, for the benefit of herself and the juvenile Mahoneys.
----

MW11 dates it to 1842.

--Ben Zimmer