Wake snakes: to raise a ruckus.
- 1848: This goin' ware glory waits ye hain't one agree'ble feetur. An ef it worn't for wakin' snakes, I'd come home again short meter. Biglow Papers, No.2
- 1852: Wake snakes, and come tojudgement- the times are big with the fate of nations. Mr. Brown, Mississippi, House of Reps., Congressional Globe, March 30, p.359
Want to know: a New England expression equivalent to today's "Really? What else happened?"
- 1842: Among the peculiar expressions in use in Maine we noticed that, when a person has communicated some intelligence in which the hearer feels an interest, he manifests it by saying "I want to know"; and when he has concluded his narrative, the hearer will reply "0! do tell!" J.S. Buckingham, Eastern and Western States, p.177
Whip: to defeat or beat an opponent.
- 1815: If the enemy attack us in our present position, we must whip five to one. Massachusetts Spy, February 8
- 1838: Three hundred Indian warriors have thought proper to whip, on our soil, two companies of militia. Jeffersonian, Albany, June 23
- 1852: I felt as though I could whip all the mobs in Missouri. Ezra T. Benson, at the Mormon Tabernacle, Journal of Discourses, August 28, vi, p.263
Whip one's weight In wild cats: to defeat a powerful opponent.
- 1829: Every man who could whip his weight in wild cats burned with desire of reaping renown by an encounter with Francisco. Massachusetts Spy, February 11
- 1841: That confidence of a western man, which induces him to believe that he can whip his weight in wild cats, is no vain boast. A Week in Wall Street, p.46
Whitewash: to gloss over or hide one's faults or shortcomings.
- 1800: If you do not whitewash [President Adams] speedily, the Democrats, like swarms of flies, will bespatter him all over, and make you both as speckled as a dirty wall, and as black as the devil. Aurora, Philadelphia, July 21
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1839: I am confident every effort will be used by the committee to whitewash the black frauds and corrupt iniquities of Swartwout, and to blackwash the Administration. Mr. Duncan, Ohio, House of Reps., Congressional Globe, January 17, p. 103
Wrathy: angry.
- 1834: This kinder corner'd me, and made me a little wrathy. Seba Smith, Major Jack Downing, p.90
- 1842: Ohl you're wrothy, an't ye? Why, I didn't mean nothing but what was civil. Mrs. Kirkland, Forest Life, I, p.126.
- 1857: On Sunday morning, if breakfast is delayed, he is apt to be wrathy. Thomas B. Gunn, New York Boarding Houses, p.34
- 1888: Some grew hot and wrathy if laughed at, and that increased our fun. Mrs. Elizabeth Custer, Tenting on the Plains, p.420
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