Appeals

Words or phrases which appear on the Appeals List are those currently being drafted or revised for the OED for which the documentary evidence is incomplete. Often these are slang or colloquial items which cannot be researched in specialist texts and are most likely to be found by a general reader in non-specialized or popular literature.

Usually the appeal is for an earlier example than our current earliest (e.g. antedate 1970 for a word for which our earliest example comes from 1970), but sometimes the appeal is for an interdating where there is a large gap in the OED's quotation evidence (e.g. interdate 1589-1910). Occasionally we ask for a postdating (e.g. postdate 1875), if an editor feels that an item being revised is still current but has failed to find any recent examples through the usual avenues of research.

Please note: it is generally safe to assume that examples found by searching the Web, using search engines such as Google, will have already been considered by OED editors.

brights (n.: headlights on full beam)

antedate 1961

chip van (n.)

antedate 1953

kebab van (n.)

antedate 1990

(that which is) naught (or nought) is never in danger (proverb)

postdate 1889

one-trick pony (or horse) (n.: person/thing with limited talent)

antedate 1980

oviary (n.: flock of sheep)

interdate 1656-1998

paip (also pape) (n.: cherry stone; game played with such stones)

postdate 1955

palatiness (n.: countess palatine, or wife of a count palatine)

postdate 1866

pee off (v.: to leave)

antedate 1940

pee ... off (v.: to annoy a person)

antedate 1946

peed-off (a.: annoyed)

antedate 1988

pick up steam (v.: accelerate)

antedate 1944

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