[Ads-l] "sleaze" antedatings

[Ben Zimmer]

"Sleaze" ('sordidness') as a back-formation of "sleazy" is attested from
1954 in MW and 1967 in OED2. Here it is from 1948:

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https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117115505/rotten-sleaze/
Indianapolis News, Mar. 6, 1948, p. 6, col. 4 (letter to the editor)
And all around me and wherever I buy or am served, there are rank and empty
imitations of everything ... Two slices of bread for a ham sandwich, and
compounded rotten sleaze for "100% Americanism."
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There are earlier examples of "sleaze" relating to textiles that are fuzzy
or downy (from the original meaning of "sleazy"), e.g.:

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https://archive.org/details/sim_textile-world_1930-05-31_77_22/page/n5/mode/1up
Textile World, May 24, 1930, p. 30, col. 2
Albert J. Pfeiffer, thrown silk dealer, urges that the following points be
stressed in the new trend: Elasticity, long-wearing qualities, freedom from
pulled threads, and absence of sleaze.
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Presumably this 1918 poetic example is supposed to evoke downy fabric, but
it's hard to tell:

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https://books.google.com/books?id=Xd0PKBEKHfQC&pg=RA8-PA31
Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 31, 1918, p. 31, col. 2
"Songs of the Winds" [poem by Mary Lanier Magruder]
And ever the amber tassels seize
The wings of every riotous breeze
To fling gonfalons of golden sleaze,
Silken and soft, to the earth's far borders.
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--bgz

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