A small job, particularly about a house or farm. Hence CHORE-BOY, &c.
1820. Chores … little, odd, detached, or miscellaneous pieces of business.—J. Flint, ‘Letters from America,’ p. 264. (N.E.D.)
1838. Tommy! Why Tommy’s a harmless critter, and might be useful in doing chores about the house.—Cornelius Mathews, ‘The Motley Book,’ p. 146.
1839. It’s a chore, if you ever tried it, to catch a hog, if he’s midlin spry.—Havana (N.Y.) Republican, July 31.
1848. But I began to doubt the whole story, when I afterward saw Betty, the Doctor’s pretty ‘hired girl’ in the green-house laughing with John, the gardener and ‘chore boy,’ and was certain that she picked off one of the largest of the fruit and tucked it into her bosom.—Knick. Mag., xxxii. 230 (Sept.).
1854. It shan’t be said that Henry Thison ever tuck a poor man’s or woman’s chores to pay costs.—Id., xliv. 24 (July).
1856. He … entered the employ of the Chief-Justice of the Province, Sewall, as a chore-boy.—Id., xlvii. 102 (Jan.).
1856. Now ’t wa’n’t no great chore for me to bring up my children.—Whitcher, ‘The Widow Bedott Papers,’ No. 4.
1857. In the morning I would get up and feed my cow and milk her, and do the other out-door chores, while my wife would be preparing breakfast.—Brigham Young, April 6: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ iv. 315.
1862.
| I love to start out arter night’s begun, | |
| An’ all the chores about the farm are done. | |
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ 2nd Series, No. 2. |
1869. [Throughout Union City, Montana, on Sundays] the odd chores are done up to save what is regarded as the more precious time when wages can be earned.—A. K. McClure, Rocky Mountains,’ p. 243.
1878. ’Tain’t Mira you’ll hev to marry; and ’tain’t your chore to bring her up; the Lord give her to her pa and ma, not to you, noways.—Rose T. Cooke, ‘Happy Dodd,’ chap. xxvii.
