[Ads-l] Antedating of "hint, n." sense 2.b., a small piece of practical information

[Joel Berson]

“I thought proper to give these few loose hints of this Disease to thePublick, that they may have some true Information of it, and that thePhysicians in the Country may have time to employ their Tho’ts upon it, notknowing but it may become so general as sooner or later to employ the most wehave.”

This comes at the end of a description of the symptoms of a disease that historians say was diphtheria.


Boston Gazette, 6 Oct. 1735, 4/1.

Antedates OED2 "hint, n.", sense 2.b., "A small piece of practical information", 1777--.


Joel




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