etymology - OED Appeals: Antedatings of "headhunter"


The OED has made a public appeal for help in tracing the history of some English words, including:



headhunter


noun earlier than 1960


The tribal practice of decapitating enemies and preserving their heads gave us the first sense of headhunter around 1800. Nowadays we’re more likely to think of the less gruesome recruitment practice of targeting highly skilled or experienced personnel. The evidence suggests that this sense emerged in the United States, where our first example of headhunter, in 1960, comes from:



headhunter


1960 Harold Wentworth & Stuart Berg Flexner Dictionary of American Slang 248/2



The executive type of headhunter was surely active prior to the word appearing in this slang dictionary. Can you find any earlier examples?





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