Modern Meaning of "Gory" Not in OED

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Sun Jan 28 16:24:25 UTC 2007


The OED does not have the modern meaning of "gory," i.e., bloodcurdling,
sensational.  The classic collocation for this meaning, "gory details," is
found in American Periodical Series back to 1875 and earlier than that, I
believe, in Google Print.  Jesse or Ben, what is the earliest example in
the OED files?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
Yale Law School                             ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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