[Ads-l] gridder (1909)

[Ben Zimmer]

"gridder" = '(gridiron) football player' (not in OED, HDAS 1934, M-W 1928)

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(Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Dec. 26, 1909, p. 4C, col. 1
Of course the hockey series would be incentive enough to attract large
crowds to the Elysium the last night of this week and the first two nights
of the coming week, but with the added opportunity of seeing several Yale
gridiron stars of the past season and five or six of the varsity baseball
phenoms of Cornell and Yale, Clevelanders will tax the local ice palace to
its capacity.
Chief among the gridders who will be seen with the Eli hockey outfit are
Ford Johnson and Arthur Howe, who divided the honors as quarterback on Ted
Coy's great football machine this fall.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-plain-dealer-gridders/191113057/
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(Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Jan. 23, 1910, p. 8C, col. 8
Everybody who has ever witnessed a football contest on Van Horn field with
Case gridders guarding one goal and Reserve athletes the other, know the
extent of the rivalry between the rah rah boys.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-plain-dealer-gridders/191114956/
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Most of the other early cites I've seen are also from Ohio.

--bgz

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