Antedating of "Co-Ed"

Sat Sep 13 15:05:36 UTC 2008

Years ago I antedated _coed_ 'coeducation' back to 1875 in a note in _American Speech_.

The OED's first use for _coed_ 'woman student' is dated 1893.  Here's earlier from the _Cornell Daily Sun_ digitization project:

1881 _Cornell Daily Sun_  7 Mar. 3  The following were the toasts ... Co-education and Co-eds.

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
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