Antedating of "Radar"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 12:46:59PM -0500, Fred Shapiro wrote:
> radar (OED 1941 Nov.)
>
> 1971 _N.Y. Times_ 2 Oct. C24 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  The [depth]
> bombs must be tied to a grid of listening devices, radars and plotting
> instruments.

Actually, apart from the typo in the date, I'd observe that this seems
to represent sense 1.b. 'a device used in this system' rather than the
broader 'a system...' sense, i.e. this antedates 1945 rather than November
1941.

Looking further it seems that even the OED's November 1941 sense should
be placed with 1.b., and the 1943 Times quot. as well.

Clearly some untangling will be necessary.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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