Mischief. E. Anglia, 1825: N.E.D.
1788. His shoes were made of the leather of hypocrisy, tanned with the bark of presumption, and curried in the shop of deviltry.—Mass. Spy, Aug. 28.
1842. The execrable influence of State pride,—State deviltry in plain English.—Mr. Benton of Missouri, U.S. Senate, Jan. 13: Cong. Globe, p. 71, App.
1847. Did I remain awake—“I was crazy.” Did I stand still,—“I was plotting deviltry.”—Yale Lit. Mag., xii. 198 (March).
1853. That air Cook Stevens has put more mischief, an’ deviltry, into ’em, than all the ministers, an’ preachin’, an’ Sunday schools ’ll ever get aout on em.—‘Turnover: a Tale of New Hampshire,’ p. 50–1 (Boston).
1862. I like [the Indians,] and don’t believe in their utter deviltry.—Theodore Winthrop, ‘John Brant,’ p. 48 (N.Y., 1876).
1888. Whenever any deviltry was committed at night, particularly when some of his favorite fruit disappeared from his garden between two suns, the doer of the deed was, in his opinion, some “little bob-tailed cadet”—‘Southern Hist. Soc. Papers,’ xvi. 37.
