Antedating of "Bowie Knife"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 08:14:36PM +0000, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> bowie knife (OED 1842)
>
> 1835 _Richmond Whig_ 21 Aug. 4 (America's Historical Newspapers)  Before he had time to draw his pistol, I seized him and Fisher drew from his, C's pockets, a pistol, dirk and large Bowie knife.
>

Note also that the 1933 Supplement included 1836 and 1838 examples of
this term, so in fact we've had pre-Dickens examples in published OED
text for 80 years. It's not clear why these weren't incorporated into
OED2 in 1989, and one can be forgiven for not checking the '33
Supplement.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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