[Ads-l] "Whole cloth" to designate falsehoods, lies [Antedating to 1755]

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

Have we done this recently?

OED has for "whole cloth" a "chiefly North American" colloquial, figurative
noun form "used to indicate a statement, report, story, etc., is wholly
false, with no basis in reality." Its earliest example dates to 1823. For
an adjectival form used to designate the same (e.g., "a whole-cloth
falsehood"), the OED offers an 1831 example as an early one.

Typical appearances of the noun form are "made from/out of whole cloth" and
"cut from/out of whole cloth."

Here, below, are some antedatings. (I have to say that I'm a little unsure
about the 1792 example, which could be interpreted as referring to
inaccuracy or falsehood, but which could also be thought of as an example
of "go the whole cloth," an idiom I'll soon send a message about.)

-- Bonnie


As to the Chest of Tea you so injuriously and falsly insinuate, that I had
made a Reserve of, as not contained in my Account of Excise, it is made out
of the whole Cloth ; for the first Time that I knew or heard any Thing of
it, was in your publick Appearance, neither can I tell what you mean. And I
hereby promise to pay you the sum of Twenty Pounds Lawful Money, on your
proving only to indifferent Persons Satisfaction, that I sold a Chest of
Tea, or any Considerable Quantity, [in the last six Months] that I did not
Account for, and Pay Mr. Jones the Excise on. [In Wm. Whitwell's letter to
John Hunt, published in The Boston Gazette, or Country Journal, 4 August
1755, p. 2.]

I have been informed that it was in direct violation of our present
glorious constitution ; and that therefore it not to be obeyed. The
unconstitutionality of the law, he said, has not been proved. Very well
said I, then let us go through the whole cloth -- it is not the assemblice
[sic] and concerts carried on in violation of the law? He said he did not
know that they were. [From "Theatrical Intelligence," The Mail; or,
Claypoole's Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 21 December 1792, p. 2. For
context, see article at https://t.ly/KdC_0.]

The lying paragraph of last Monday deserves some investigation. If a
printer had the secret of the dispatches from London, it shews a leakiness
of the Cabinet that is extraordinary. But there is no ground for this
aspersion. If the story was made out of the whole cloth, and made to
influence the vote of that day, it shews, exactly what every body knew
before. That Newspaper being known as the Brussel's Gazette, may now claim
a patent for making and vending false news, without a competitor, and
without injury to the public. [In "Says a Correspondent," Gazette of the
United States and Evening Advertiser (Philadelphia), 25 April 1794, p. 3.]

The Newfoundland story about BUONAPARTE's setting up for himself, &c. &c.
is made out of the whole cloth. [Columbian Centinel (Boston), 3 January
1798, p. 3.]

The tory papers say that Messrs. Madison, Lincoln, and Dearborn, blame the
President of the United States for making new appointments, or, in other
words, for displacing tories, and putting whigs in their room. This "plump
lie," we presume, was "made out of the whole cloth." ["A Tory Lie," The
Constitutional Telegraphe (Boston), 11 July 1801, p. 3.]

(The expression really takes off around 1803. -- Bonnie)

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