"landslide" antedatings

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Today's Word Routes column on the Visual Thesaurus is about the slippery
term "landslide":

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1600/

Here are some antedatings I found while researching the article.


* geological (OED2 1856)

1822 _Boston Daily Advertiser_ 3 Aug. 2/3 _Land-slide_ -- A short time
since, the land on the brow of a hill in Hudson was severed, and about an
acre and a half of ground, after sinking 10 or 15 feet, moved horizontally
about two rods.
[America's Historical Newspapers]

1826 _Rural Repository_ 25 Nov. 104/1 Alluding to the storms on the White
Mountains, during which a whole family was entombed beneath a land-slide.
[American Periodical Series]

* political (OED2 1888)

1856 _New Hampshire Statesman_ 23 Aug. 1/7 If this is an index of what is
going on in Ohio, look out for a land-slide here on the 4th of November, for
we are all going one way. -- N.Y. Eve. Post.
[19th Century U.S. Newspapers]

1872 _Chicago Tribune_ 6 June 4/7 But, whether one or another, look out
after that for one of the greatest political landslides that ever occurred
in any country.
[Proquest HNP]


--Ben Zimmer

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