"American", verb, 1835

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 3:17 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> American (verb), 1835.
>
> [Morse, Samuel F. B.]
> Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States
> through Foreign Immigration, and the Present State of the
> Naturalization Laws. A Series of Numbers, Originally Published in the
> New York Journal of Commerce in 1835.
> By an American. Newly Revised and Corrected, with Additions, by the Author.
> New York: John F. Trow, 1854.
>
> They [undesirable foreigners, especially Catholic] can out-American
> Americans in admiration of American institutions to-day, and "condemn
> them as unfit for any people" to-morrow.
>
> p. 10
> American (verb)
> not in OED2 as verb

Not really "American" as a verb, of course, but another variation on
the common template "to out-X X". OED has a large section on this
under "out-", with citations back to Shakespeare ("It out-Herods
Herod").


--Ben Zimmer

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