Antedating of Flea Market

[Joel S. Berson]

At 7/8/2008 07:09 AM, Sam Clements wrote:
>OED and MW11 both have 1922.
>
>N'archive has _Janesville(WI) Gazette_  4 November 1891 p, 3/4
>
>   "Near the Barriere de Montreuil, in Paris, they have sales of
> odds and ends known as the "flea market."  A woman recently bought
> a dilapidated old mattress and, cutting it open, found 14,000 francs in gold."

This is presumably the mattress from which, etymologically, the fleas arose.

Joel

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