subs. phr. (American).—The natives of Nova Scotia. [In allusion, it is said, to a potato of that name which Nova Scotians claim to be the best in the world. Proctor, however, would wager that the Nova Scotians were called BLUE NOSES before the potato which they rear was so named, and hazards the suggestion that the nickname refers to the blueness of nose resulting from intense cold.]

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  1837–40.  HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker. Do you know the reason monkeys are no good? because they chatter all day long—as do the niggers—and so do the BLUE-NOSES of Nova Scotia.

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  1846.  J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers.

        The sort o’ trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater.
I ’d give a year’s pay fer a smell o’ one good BLUE-NOSE tater.

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  1847.  SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, An Overland Journey, I., 19. After a run [in the steamer] of precisely fourteen days, we entered the harbour of Halifax, amid the hearty cheers of a large number of ‘BLUE NOSES.’

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