subs. phr. (colloquial).—A start; a God-speed. SEND-OFF NOTICE = an obituary.
1872. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, 332. One of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good SEND OFF.
1876. BESANT and RICE, The Golden Butterfly, xviii. After the funeral Huggins … wrote a beautiful SEND-OFF NOTICE, saying what a loss the community had suffered in Scrimmy’s untimely end.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 16 Nov., 6, 1. It looks as if Adelina Patti’s SEND-OFF concert on Monday night would be a very brilliant affair.
1894. A. MORRISON, Tales of Mean Streets, ‘Three Rounds.’ In the beginning [he] might even have been an office-boy, if only the widow, his mother, had been able to give him a good SEND-OFF in the matter of clothes.
1897. Referee, 14 March, 1, 1. These departers were to be patted on the back, given a good SEND-OFF, and helped on the road.
