a case ???

[Jonathon Green]

George Thompson wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      a case  ???
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't see a meaning for the word "case" in HDAS or Cassell's that fits this without some heavy wrenching and squeezing.  Here it is used to mean "a loss".
>
>
Point taken, but I would suggest that it is not that far from what I
offer in CDS II at 'case n.4 (1) [mid-19C) (US) a doomed person. Thus
the cite:

1845 W.T. Thompson _Chronicles of Pineville_ 150: Farewell, Peters - I’m
a case.

Presumably in both instances we are looking at 'a case of ... ' though I
admit to being puzzled by what exactly that might have been.

JG

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