1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, iv. Come, heave ahead, my lads, and be smart.
1835. Hoffman, Winter in the West. There's a smart chance of cigars there in the bar.
1836. Scott, Cruise of Midge, 363. There's a smart hand . . . a good seaman evidently by the cut of his jib.
1837. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, ii. Smart chap that cabman . . . but . . . punch his head! Ibid. (1844), Martin Chuzzlewit, xxxiii. Scadder is a smart man, sir . . . Scadder was a smart man, and had drawed a lot of British capital that was as sure as sun-up . . . Wish he might be sifted fine as flour, and whittled small as chips; that if they didn't come off that fixing right smart too, he'd spill 'em in the drink. Ibid. (1853), Bleak House, ix. I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart.
1843. Carlton, New Purchase, i. 85. There was a smart sprinkle of rattlesnakes on Red Rum, and a powerful nice day to sun themselves.
1844. Haliburton, Attache, ix. He has a smart chance of getting a better character.
18[?]. Macaulay [Trevelyan, i. 202]. A smart, impudent-looking young dog dressed like a sailor in a blue jacket and check shirt, marched up.
1849. Bronte, Shirley, xxiv. This stout lady in a quaint black dress, who looks young enough to wear much smarter raiment if she would.
1852. Stray Yankee in Texas [Bartlett]. A powerful smart-looking chunk of a pony.
1854. Olmsted, Texas, 301. Each man's rations consisting of a pint of mouldy corn and a right smart chunk of bacon.
1856. Stowe, Dred, i. 209. She had right smart of life in her.
1861. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, xxxv. He's a prig, and a smart one, too.
1869. Stowe, Oldtown, 57. She was a little thin woman, but tough as Inger rubber, and smart as a steel trap.
1884. Clemens, Huck. Finn, v. 34. I'll lay for you, my smarty, and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.
1885. Century Mag., xl. 271. For a time the Clays were seen and heard of, on the top wave of London's smart society.
1889. Harper's Mag., lxxx. 'Lit. Notes.' The awfully smart boy is only smart—in the worst American sense of the word—as his own family make him so.
1889. Kipling, Rout of the White Hussars. It was all the Colonel's fault . . . He said the regiment was not smart enough.
1889. Answers, 27 July, 141, 1. He knew that if the manuscript got about the Yankees would think it a smart thing to crib it.
1891. Marriot-Watson, Web of Spider, xxii. 'Smart he was, but he had a smarter man against him.' . . . 'Yes, but you don't yet realise how smart.'
1900. White, West End, 19. Among the smart set, and under the surface, little is impossible.
1901. Pall Mall Gaz., 28 Nov., 2, 3. There can be no question that the smart tradesman of to-day thrusts himself upon the general notice with tiresome assiduity.
1903. The Smart Set, a Magazine of Cleverness [Title].
See Smart-money.
Smart-money, subs. phr. (old).—1.
'Given by the King, when a
Man in Land or Sea-Service has
a Leg Shot or Cut off, or is disabled'
(B. E. and Grose): hence
(2) a fine; and (3) vindictive
damages: also smart.
Smash, subs. (colloquial).—1. Iced
brandy and water.
2. (common).—Mashed vegetables: potatoes, turnips, and the like (Grose).
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. The sweep asked him what he was going to have. 'A two-and-a-half plate and a ha'p'orth of smash.'
3. (prison).—Tobacco: hence to sling the smash = to pass tobacco to a prisoner.
Verb. (thieves').—To utter base coin. Hence smasher = (1) base coin or paper; and (2) one who passes base money into circulation (Grose and Vaux). Also 2. (common) = to give change (Bee): as subs. = loose change.
