ampersand
(æmpəˈsænd, ˈæmp-)
Also ampassy-, ampussy-, ampus-.
Corruption of ‘and per se—and’, the old way of spelling and naming the character &; i.e. ‘& by itself = and;’ found in various forms in almost all the dialect Glossaries. See A per se (under A IV 1) I per se, O per se, etc.
| 1837 Haliburton Clockm. (1862) 399 He has hardly learned what Ampersand means, afore they give him a horse. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede xxi, He thought it [Z] had only been put there to finish off th' alphabet like, though ampusand would ha' done as well. 1869 Punch 17 Apr., Of all the types in a printer's hand Commend me to the Amperzand. 1881 A. F. Parker Oxf. Gl., ‘Amsiam, the sign &.’ 1882 Freeman in Longm. Mag. I. 95 ‘Ampussy and,’ that is, in full ‘and per se, and,’ is the name of the sign for the conjunction and, &, which used to be printed at the end of the alphabet. |