[Ads-l] "prexy" (1854)

[Ben Zimmer]

The OED3 entry for "prexy" = 'president' (revised 2007) has a first cite
from an 1871 book about Yale. Here's an 1854 cite showing its use at Kenyon
College.

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Cleveland Daily Express, Oct 3, 1854, p. 3, col. 2
https://www.newspapers.com/article/cleveland-morning-express-prexy/170219446/
[Letter from "A Kenyonite"]
Seats were selected by the different classes, recitations appointed, and we
found ourselves in the short space of an hour, transformed from freemen
into those persons who are under the delectable and without doubt salutary
surveillance of Tuts and Proffs, Prexy included. (Prexy is an abbreviated
term for President, so that I do not say anything disrespectful when I use
it.)
---

The earliest I can find for usage at Yale is from 1867, though in these
examples the word is not defined.

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College Courant, Nov. 20, 1867, p. 110, col. 2
https://books.google.com/books?id=HIZPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA142
Dear Mr. Editor of the Yale College Paper: I want to write to you about my
big brother, who has just spent Christmas vacation with us. [...] He talks
very loudly about "dead rushes," "fizzles," "flunks," "prexy," and "hoads;"
none of which I understand.
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Henry Edwards Pardee, _Record of the Class of 1856 of Yale College_ (1867),
p. 7
https://books.google.com/books?id=64nZ6gCFTTgC&pg=PA7
Now Prexy dear, how do you do?
Professor Classmate, here's to you,
Be sure you put the Freshmen through!
---

--bgz

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