[A term registered on 14 March, 1884, by Messrs. Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., as a trademark applied to chemical substances used in medicine and pharmacy prepared by them, and afterwards for other goods; held by the Court of Appeal to be a ‘fancy word’ as applied to the goods for which it is registered, and legally restricted to the preparations of the firm named.]
The figurative, transferred, and sometimes humorous use, chiefly attrib. or as adj., illustrated below has relation mostly to the compressed or concentrated form of the drugs sold by the firm under the name: see quot. 1903.
1898. Natural Science, Feb., 112. This presumed tabloid condition [of the flints] is brought about by a presumed extreme cold.
1901. Westm. Gaz., 1 Jan., 9/3. He advocated tabloid journalism. Ibid. (1902), 1 April, 10/2. The proprietor intends to give in tabloid form all the news printed by other journals.
1902. Encycl. Brit., XXXI. 574/2. The untouched cells below the cut grow larger … with the formation of tabloid cork-cells.
1903, Nov., 20–Dec. 14. Mr. Justice Byrne, in Repts. Patent & Trade Mark Cases, XXI. 69. The word Tabloid has become so well-known … in consequence of the use of it by the Plaintiff firm in connection with their compressed drugs that I think it has acquired a secondary sense in which it has been used and may legitimately be used so long as it does not interfere with their trade rights. I think the word has been so applied generally with reference to the notion of a compressed form or dose of anything.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 3 Jan., 3/1. Five short tableaux of drama which … might be described brutally as five tabloids of melodrama.
