Citations:wilcox

English citations of wilcox and Wilcox

1881, Harriet B. Worron, "Trustum" and His Grandchildren:
[page 146:] […] hove in sight of Abel's pond, and I s'pose thee's been wilcoxing round ever since. Can thee spin, Liddy?" "Yes, aunt Debby," answered Lydia […]

[page 178:] It's as tough as witchet to begin with, and after being wilcoxed round for two or three years in the Mary and Susan, from Marsyfury to Guadaluope, the might cook it and bile it till doomsday, and then it would choke thee going down.

1922, The Saturday Evening Post, page 92:
"But what are you doing with your time? Aren't you lonesome while I'm running all over the place?" "I'm Wilcoxing." she said. "How does one Wilcox?" "I wish I knew."

1947, Earl Chapin May, Century of Silver, 1847-1947: Connecticut Yankees and a Noble Metal
Perhaps "G.H." would stay away on Sunday to do his puttering, or "Wilcoxing." For many years he had kept a scrap or filing book of newspaper clippings […]

1916, William Francis Macy, Roland B. Hussey, The Nantucket Scrap Basket: Being a Collection of Characteristic Stories and Sayings of the People of the Town and Island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, page 167:
"Wilcox" - Much used in Nantucket formerly, to describe an uneasy, sleepless night. […] "I wilcoxed all night long." It has been suggested that the term originated with a story family named Wilcox who, having an overplus of company one night, slept four or five in a bed, with the natural result that no one slept at all.
1917, Dialect Notes, page 336:
To be nervously uneasy . wilcox , v . i . To be sleepless and uneasy . “ I couldn't sleep . I wilcoxed all night long . " wild fowl flavor , n . phr * 2005, Jeffrey Kacirk, Informal English: Puncture Ladies, Egg Harbors, Mississippi Marbles, and Other Curious Words and Phrases of North America, Simon and Schuster (→ISBN), page 219:

wilcox : To pass a restless, uneasy, sleepless night. "I wilcoxed all night long." Nantucket. [Macy]