subs. (common).—A hint; a piece of news: (in gaming) a signal from a confederate; (American journalist) a paragraph of news; (thieves’) a warning.
d. 1680. GLANVILL (quoted in Encyclopædic Dictionary). If this discourse have not concluded our weakness, I have one more ITEM of mine.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. ITEM. It was I that gave the ITEM that the traps were a coming.
1893. RUSSELL, Current Americanisms, s.v. ITEM. ‘To give an ITEM,’ is to signal information to a confederate unfairly.
1864. R. B. KIMBALL, Was He Successful? ch. xii., p. 143. Innis is ITEM man and reporter for the Clarion.
c. 1877. New York Spirit of the Times, (quoted in BARTLETT). Keep your eyes skinned and your rifles clean, and the minit yer get ITEM that I’m back, set off for the cross roads.
