[Ads-l] Antedating of "Gate" (Person, Jazz Slang)

[Shapiro, Fred]

gate (OED, 5.d., 1937)

This sense of the word "gate" is said to have occurred in the lyrics of the 1933 Bessie Smith song, "Give Me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer": "Send me, gate, I don't care."

Fred Shapiro


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