[Ads-l] underground

[Jonathan Lighter]

adj.

1939: OED

1933 _Asheville Citizen-Times_ (June 25) B-6: It is stated that an
underground anti-Nazi press is already functioning in Germany.

1934 _Daily Worker_ (N.Y.C.) (Feb. 8) 4: Underground Resistance to Nazis
Grows Constantly....The underground resistance is very great. Small.
compact groups who keep in touch with each other only through their
captains, for secrecy are working heroically and persistently everywhere.


 n.

1946: OED

1938 _Times-Picayune_ (N.O.) (Jan. 29) 12:  The Austrian state council
today rushed consideration of measures to curb the influx of Jews being
smuggled by the "underground railway" from Poland and
RuTimes-Picayunemania. The underground - a system of speeding fugitives
from one secret hideaway to another until safety has been reached - has
been geared to high speed because of increasing anti-Semitism in Poland and
Rumania....Employes of the underground lead them across the frontiers by
secret paths.

1941 Edwin Justus Mayer, Oliver H. P. Garrett, & Charles Grayson
_Underground_ (film): Suspected of being connected with the underground....
You didn't know your brother was a member of the underground?...Help us.
Help the underground!


The movie - which must have helped popularize the usage - was released in
June, 1941.

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

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