[Ads-l] ballbuster

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED: 1954

Strange but true:

1871 _Buffalo [N.Y.]  Commercial Advertiser_ (May 24) 2: Deacon
BALLBUSTER...guv me some sass at the last vestry meetin', and I was
prepar'd for him.

Also (baseball) a heavy hitter:

1898 _North Adams [Mass.] Transcript_ (May 24) 3: Another juvenile baseball
team has been organized at Renfrew. The yare the "Ball Busters."

1918 _Springfield [Mass.] Daily News_  10: Westinghouse Team to Send Its
Star Pitcher Against Hartford Ball Buster.

1922 _Great Falls Daily Tribune_  (Apr. 3) 12: McInnis is hitting like a
ball buster.

1931 _Las Vegas [Nev.] Review-Journal_ (May 5) 4: A big blond Bohemian ball
buster from the sand lots has come back to his home town to play with the
Indians.

1940 _Times-Picayune_ (N.O.) (May 24) 19: Hank Leiber, the big ball buster
of the Cubs.

BONUS:

"Ball-breaker."

1870 _Daily Milwaukee News_ (Mar. 13) 5: This house have just completed a
machine, for the inventor, Mr. Ball, which is destined to work a complete
revolution in the crushing of quartz rock....The "Ball Breaker" we speak
of, will do the work of any two machines they have seen.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org