To arrange, to place, to set right, to mend, to dress, to settle: a word of wide import.
1708. Mr. Makemie of Virginia, in his will dated April 27th, bequeathed to Mr. Jedediah Andrews his “black camlet coat, and [his] new cane, bought and fixed at Boston.”—W. H. Foote, ‘Sketches of Virginia,’ p. 57 (1850).
1769. We’d fix things directly.—Bickerstaff and Foote, ‘Dr. Last in His Chariot,’ ii. 1. (N.E.D.)
1799. I fixed my hat a little better on my head, and then advanced boldly into the tavern.—The Aurora, Phila., Sept. 11.
1800. Have fix’d Randolph,—wish the other house would fix Mason.—Id., April 8.
1804.
| Our meeting-houses should be fix’d | |
| For men and women to be mix’d, | |
| To take their pleasure, drink, and dance. | |
Mass. Spy, Aug. 8. |
1805. His wife observed that the sticks were too big; he said he would fix them.—Id., March 6.
1820. She replied that she had rather go to Hell than to Church, without having her hair fixed to please her.—Id., Feb. 16.
1825. Wait a minute, or so. Let me git fixt.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 374.
1830. [He] went to drinking whiskey in large quantities, which fixed him for slow travelling.—Mass. Spy, Dec. 1.
1832. Another slave in the house [at Baltimore] told us, that she “liked religion right well, but that she never took fits in it, ’cause she was always fixed in her best when she went to chapel, and she did not like to have all her best clothes broke up.”—Mrs. Trollope, ‘Domestic Manners of the Americans,’ i. 296.
1833. “There was a right smart chance of sickness, when she came into the settlement,” continued the man, “a heap of people called on her—she had abundance to do, and she flew round among the folks mighty peart, I tell you. The way she fixed ’em, was the right way, there’s no mistake in it.”—James Hall, ‘Legends of the West,’ p. 88 (Phila.).
1833. [She] said she’d “fix me,” and began to pin my tatters together in such a manner as to enable me to reach Broadway, without exciting very particular notice.—American Monthly Mag., i. 395 (Aug.).
1835. I said I had never seem him [Andrew Jackson] misrepresented; but that they had fixed him just where he had fixed himself, that was—before the Constitution.—‘Col. Crockett’s Tour,’ p. 64 (Phila.).
1835. I began to dress, but my agitation was such that every thing went wrong; and not until after two hours of fixing and unfixing was I decently equipped.—‘Harvardiana,’ i. 80.
1836. He was lawyer enough, he said, to know that every offence should be tried on the spot where it was committed; and if he had stolen the pennies from his grandmother’s eyes in Louisiana, the people in Texas would have nothing to do with that affair, nohow they could fix it.—‘Col. Crockett in Texas,’ p. 125 (Phila.).
1842. The lady and the midshipman had gotten comfortably fixed in the boarding-house.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, April 19.
1843. That fixes the tavern-keepers and the tipplers.—Cornelius Mathows, ‘Writings,’ p. 123.
1843. It takes days with her now to fix and unfix a notion.—Id., p. 246.
1843. You’ll wait a little till he’s got breath, and had his wound fixed.—Yale Lit. Mag., ix. 116 (Jan.).
1852. What business had your proof-reader to fix my Latin?—Knick. Mag., xl. 277 (Sept.).
1856. Go ahead! I can hear you and fix the fire, too.—Id., xlvii. 270 (March).
1856. ‘Well, Miss Lucy,’ says I, ‘only point me out your traps, and I ’ll send ’em up to the hotel, and fix you off all as square as a box.’—Id., xlvii. 617 (June).
1857. I got mad, and I swore a big oath to myself that I ’d fix that thar cussed varmint [a coon] in less nor a week, or die tryin’.—Id., xlix. 68 (Jan.).
1870. “Polygamy would be all right, Bill,” said another [young Mormon], “if they only wouldn’t pull hair. But the women will pull hair anyway you fix it.”—J. H. Beadle, ‘Life in Utah,’ p. 225 (Phila. &c.).
