1854. Report of Com. of Indian Affairs. They [the Camenches, Apaches, and others] had met for the purpose of forming their own party, in order, as they in their strong language said, to wipe out all frontier Indians they could find on the plains.
1858. Alta Califomian, July. The Pima Indians have got up another quarrel with the Apaches, and have mustered upwards of a thousand warriors to give battle. It is their determination to wipe out the Apaches, or, as they express it, to eat them up entirely, which is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
1857. New York Times; Nov. 'Letter from Utah.' The Mormon militia under Brigham Young intend to take a stand at the pass in the mountains near Bear River, with the certainty of wiping out the U.S. forces sent against them.
1861-5. Robinson, Kansas, 222. We are coming to Lawrence, said the Missourians, in a few days, to wipe out the damned abolition city, and to kill and drive off every one of the inhabitants.
1870. Medbury, Men and Mysteries of Wall Street, 138. To wipe out a stock operator is a Wall-Street phrase, and means to entangle him in a stock transaction until he loses his footing and fails utterly. It is one of the malignancies and cruelties of the street.
1887. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie, i. 3. I'll mop the floor up with him any day, if so be as you or any on 'em '11 make it worth my while.
1888. Detroit Free Press, Aug. The Scroggin boy was as tough as a dog-wood knot. He'd wipe up the ground with him; he'd walk all over him.
Wire, subs, (colloquial).—1. A telegram. Also as verb.
2. (thieves*).—An expert pickpocket: see Thief.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., 1. 410. He was worth £20 a week, he said, as a wire.
1862. Mayhew, Crim. Prisons, 46. Buzzers who pick gentlemen's pockets, and wires who pick ladies' pockets.
To wire in (or away), verb, phr. (common).—To set to with a will, to apply oneself perseveringly and zealously.
1888. Fort. Rev., N.S., xliii. 93. In one fashion or another he keeps wiring
1900. Nisbet, Sheep's Clothing, 132. She's a fine girl . . . and I think Mr. Lupus won't object to me hanging my hat up there. I'll wire in and convert her first, though.
Wired Up, adj. phr. (American).—Irritated; provoked.
Wire-puller (or -worker), subs, phr. (political).—A manipulator of party and other interests, working by means more or less secret; a political intriguer. Hence to pull the wires = to exercise a commanding secret political influence. Also wire-pulling, subs.
1848. New York Mirror, 5 June. Philadelphia . . . is filled with wire-pullers, public opinion manufacturers, embryo cabinet officers, future ambassadors, and the whole brood of political make-shifts.
1858. Nat. Intell., 20 Sept. The wire-workers in convention had a deep interest in a particular suit at law, to which their candidate was pledged to give a judgment in their favor, in case of being the judge.
1874. Siliad, 69. They and their fathers, and their fathers' sires, Had worked the oracle and pulled the wires.
1879. Froude, Ccesar, 369. It was useless now to bribe the Comitia, to work with clubs and wire-pullers.
Wishy-washy, adj. (colloquial).—Weak, insipid, ROTTEN (o.v.).
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, xxiv. A good seaman he is as ever stept upon forecastle, and a brave fellow as ever crackt bisket—none of your Guinea-pigs, nor your fresh-water wishy-washy, fair-weather fowls.
1801. Dibdin, il Bondocani, iii. 3. None of your wishy-washy sparks that mince their steps.
1855. Kingsley, Westward Ho, viii. If you are a coffin, you were sawn out of no wishy-washy elm-board, but right heart-of-oak.
