Appeals

Words or phrases that 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.

petaliform (a.: having the form of or resembling a petal) postdate 1876
pickle (n.: a troublesome child) interdate 1915–1999
picksome (a.: fastidious, picky) postdate 1957
pigeon-hole (v.: to furnish with or create pigeon-holes; to divide into pigeon-holes) antedate 1879
plumb (n.: a deep hole in the bed of a river, the sea, etc.) postdate 1913
post-coital (a.) antedate 1922
post-coitally (adv.) antedate 1968
posterial (a.: of or relating to the posterior) interdate ?a1475–1834
post-geniture (n.: the fact of being born after another in the same family) interdate 1658–1924
postholder (n.: a person who occupies a post; one holding a particular job, office, etc.) antedate 1961
postillate (v.: to make notes or comments on) interdate ?a1475–a1864
priming (n.: a sufficient amount, a sufficiency) postdate 1904

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