A college diploma.
1843. We don’t ax pay in cash nor trade nither for the Gospel, and arn’t no hirelins like them high-flow’d college-larned sheepskins—but as the Lord freely give us, we freely give our fellow critturs.—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ i. 141.
1843. I never rub’d my back agin a collige, nor git no sheepskin, and allow the Apostuls didn’t nithur…. This here new testament’s sheepskin enough for me.—Id., ii. 139–40.
1845. He not only lost the valedictory, but barely escaped with his ‘sheep-skin.’—Yale Lit. Mag., x. 74 (Dec.).
1854. Watch their countenances as that handsome Senior in his commencement suit, and with the self-satisfied, pompous air, which becomes one who has successfully, not to say, brilliantly battled all the difficulties of four years at college—receives his sheepskin from the dispensing hand of our worthy Prex.—Id., xix. 355 (Aug.).
1862. Some of us come to College merely to oblige fond parents, with no aspirations beyond an easy course and a sheepskin after four years.—Id., xxvii. 147 (Feb.). (Italicized in the original.)
