[Ads-l] "cheers" v.

[Jesse Sheidlower]

I've been noticing _cheers_ as a verb, meaning 'to say "cheers" to; to toast', for a moderate but not extremely long time. Recently a correspondent asked me about this (in the context of observing anecdotally that _cheers!_ interjection seemed more common to him than other toasts), so did some casual searching. I was surprised to find it back to 1974, though that seems to be an isolated example until the early 2000s (which era is more reasonable to my own sense of this term). It's hard to search, though.

Any thoughts, or evidence?

1974 F. Forsyth _The Dogs of War_ 49
Manson nodded several times in approval, and brought the glasses over. They "Cheersed" each other and savoured the whisky.

2004 B. Biggs _In Moral Danger_ 218
He sends a drink over.... When I start drinking his drink, he holds his glass up to "cheers" me.

2005 _Chicago Reader_ 7 Jan. 10
Then she got up, grabbed Daniel's half-full mug, poured the beer into her empty one, cheersed us, and shuffled back to her seat.

[...]

Jesse Sheidlower

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