yellowback

American  

[yel-oh-bak] / ˈyɛl oʊˌbæk /

noun

1. (formerly) an inexpensive, often lurid, novel bound in yellow cloth or paper.

2. a gold certificate.

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Etymology

Origin of yellowback

First recorded in 1790–1800; yellow + back ¹

Example Sentences

Why, he'd give this one or that one a yellowback to buy a new hat, say,—and then the others would tease for new hats.

From Project Gutenberg

Tyler Spotswood, in his early 405, can still sourly remember the Washington childhood he spent "in a yellowback walk-up apartmenthouse off a stagnant tree-choked street, with a preachy bookish father who was always broke and a sweet mother with trailing sleeves and a goody-goody kid brother who was a hopeless sap."

From Time Magazine Archive

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.

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

He tossed a yellowback bill lightly into her lap, and she made a great show of rejecting it, even pushing it toward him across the table and to the floor.

From Project Gutenberg