Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun cheap sensational novel

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I got a ten-dollar yellowback from my wallet, gave it to him, and half a dozen others gave him money; one man gave him a gold piece.

    Time and Again Finney, Jack 1995

  • In literature we have to differentiate what is purely a commercial product like the yellowback novel, what is educational like the classic, and what is of the new.

    A Tramp's Sketches Stephen Graham 1929

  • You saw what that fellow flashed, a twenty dollar yellowback, a word to Skippy and the Kennedy would follow.

    Skippy Bedelle His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete Man of the World Owen Johnson 1915

  • Having first taken one twenty dollar yellowback from the well-padded book, he slipped it and the cigarcase into the inner coat pocket of the dead man.

    Brand Blotters William MacLeod Raine 1912

  • Perhaps, to tell the truth, they had never before seen even one yellowback note, and hardly understood what they were.

    The House Boat Boys George Rathborne 1896

  • When he opened the little rusty covered diary and those beautiful yellowback government gold notes fluttered to the ground there was

    The House Boat Boys George Rathborne 1896

  • As he idly opened the book there was disclosed a little collection of genuine government yellowback bills, not one of which was less than ten dollars in its denomination.

    The House Boat Boys George Rathborne 1896

  • During this time I scarcely knew whether I was on land or on sea - so anxious was I to clasp in my hands the little yellowback book, entitled "My Own Life, or a Deserted Wife."

    My own life, or, A deserted wife, 1895

  • "Octoroon," and what an impossible yellowback it was!

    The Delicious Vice Young Ewing Allison 1892

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