playbilln.

1610 R. Perrott Let. 6 Aug. in Sackville Papers (HMC. 80. Sackville 1/No. 1129) The copy of the Cownselles Order, which the pryst hase agaynst youe is throwne about the Towne as thicke as playe billes in London.

1620 J. Chamberlain Let. 28 Oct. (1939) II. 323 Another [patent] for whatsoever is printed but on the one side whether in paper or parchment, which besides many other things I know not how far yt may concerne ballades and play-bills.

1673 R. Leigh Transproser Rehears'd 1 Having posted up a playbill for the title of his book..being prefer'd from writing of bills for the play-houses.

1759 S. Johnson Idler 10 Mar. 73 His first care in the morning is to read the Play-bills.

1779 F. Burney Let. in Early Jrnls. & Lett. (1994) 394 But we all agreed we should not have been very proud to have had our names at the Head of a Play Bill of Dryden's Tempest.

1803 B. Greatheed Jrnl. 15 Jan. (1953) ii. 25 The acting was admirable, but as there were no play bills I do not know the actors.

1875 J. R. Lowell Wks. (1890) IV. 376 Theatrical critiques as ephemeral as play-bills.

1910 J. Addams Twenty Years at Hull-House xvi. 395 This group of Hull-House artists have filled our little foyer with a series of charming playbills.

2000 Witness 14 No. 1. 65 She had been in a risqué postmodern drama called Undercover in the House of Love: a History of the Bathhouse, whose playbill gave a dry Foucauldian reading of the San Francisco spa scene during the early 80s.