1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. 7. I’ve made up my mind to make a tower of travel to the big North this summer, jest for greens, as we say in Georgia, when we hain’t got no very pertickeler reason for anything, or hain’t got time to tell the real one.
Green-apron, subs. (old).—A lay preacher. Also adjectively. For synonyms, see Devil-Dodger and Sky-Pilot.
1654. Warren, Unbelievers, 145. It more befits a green-apron preacher, than such a Gamaliel.
1705. Hickeringill, Priestcraft, I. (1721) 21. Unbeneficed Noncons. (that live by Alms and no Paternoster, no Penny, say the green-aprons).
1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II., 451. The gifted priestess amongst the Quaker is known by her green apron.
Green-back, subs. (common).—1. A frog.
2. (University).—One of Todhunter’s series of mathematical text-books. (Because bound in green cloth. Cf., Blue-ruin.)
3. (American).—The paper issue of the Treasury of the United States; first sent out in 1862 during the civil war. [From the backs being printed in green.] Hence green-backer = an advocate for an unlimited issue or paper money.
1873. Echo, 8 May. This was accomplished by the issue of legal tender notes, popularly known as greenbacks.
1877. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 499. Anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was saleable, and at a figure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded with greenbacks.