[Ads-l] Major Antedating of "Vibe"

[Shapiro, Fred]

vibe (OED, n2, 1967)

1908 Elbert Hubbard in The Philistine Apr. 129 (Google Books)  One Dolodocci puts the culprit on the wire for all the vibes his system can stand.

1909 Homoeopathic Recorder May 236 (Goole Books)  Vibration is the beginning and the end — "vibes," slangy Elbert Hubbard calls them.

NOTE:  These citations are chronologically distant from the hippieish uses of the word beginning in 1967, but the meaning is very similar.  Elbert Hubbard was quite fond of "vibe" and used it repeatedly.

Fred Shapiro



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