former New Amsterdam (city), New Netherlands (colony), renamed after British acquisition in 1664 in honor of the Duke of York and Albany (1633-1701), the future James II, who had an interest in the territory. See York. Related: New Yorker. Latinized Noveboracensian "of or pertaining to New York" (1890) contains the Medieval Latin name of York, England, Eboracum. New York minute "very short time" attested by 1976.
Some of Mr. [Horace] Gregory's poems have merely appeared in The New Yorker; others are New Yorker poems: the inclusive topicality, the informed and casual smartness, the flat fashionable irony, meaningless because it proceeds from a frame of reference whose amorphous superiority is the most definite thing about it—they are the trademark not simply of a magazine but of a class. [Randall Jarrell, "Town Mouse, Country Mouse," The Nation, Sept. 20, 1941]
named 1664 by one of the proprietors, Sir George Carteret, for his home, the Channel island of Jersey. Jersey girl attested from 1770.
1616, named by Capt. John Smith. As an adjective, New English (1630s) is older than New Englandish (1863). Related: New Englander; the Latinized form Novanglian is attested from 1670s.
U.S. state based on the former Nuevo México province of New Spain (later Mexico); the name traces to 1560s and is a reference to the valley of Mexico, around modern Mexico City (see Mexico). Annexed to the U.S. as a territory in 1848; admitted as a state in 1912.
"evening before the first day of the new year," c. 1300; "þer þay dronken & dalten ... on nwe gerez euen." The Julian calendar began on January 1, but the Christian Church frowned on pagan celebrations of this event and chose the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) as its New Year's Day. The civic year in England continued to begin January 1 until late 12c., and even though legal documents then shifted to March 25, popular calendars and almanacs continued to begin on January 1. The calendar reform of 1751 restored the Julian New Year in England. New Year's was the main midwinter festival in Scotland from 17c., when Protestant authorities banned Christmas, and continued so after England reverted to Christmas, hence the Scottish flavor ("Auld Lang Syne," etc.). New Year's gathering in public places began 1878 in London, after new bells were installed in St. Paul's.
1902, Australia and New Zealand slang, of unknown origin.
shortening of communist (n.), 1939. Australia/New Zealand variant Commo is attested from 1941.
New Zealand lizard, 1844, from Maori, from tua "on the back" + tara "spine."
