1903 C. B. Fry in P. F. Warner How We recovered Ashes (1904) ii. 29 You must persuade that Bosanquet of yours to practise..those funny ‘googlies’ of his.

1904 P. F. Warner How we recovered Ashes 106 Bosanquet..can bowl as badly as anyone in the world, but, when he gets a length, those slow ‘googlies’, as the Australian papers call them, are apt to paralyse the greatest players.

1909 P. A. Vaile in Westm. Gaz. 17 Sept. 14/2 The ‘googly’ is merely the American service at lawn-tennis introduced into cricket.

1920 E. R. Wilson in P. F. Warner Cricket (Badminton Libr. of Sports & Pastimes) (new ed.) ii. 74 The ‘googly’ or ‘Bosie ball’ as it was afterwards christened in Australia.

1924 N. Cardus Days in Sun 48 Hirst cultivated the swerve and Bosanquet the ‘googly’.

1930 C. V. Grimmett Getting Wickets i. 22 It was at this time that I learned to bowl the ‘bosie’ or ‘googly’—an off-break with a leg-break action.

1954 J. H. Fingleton Ashes crown Year 46 Australians call it bosie after Bosanquet..Englishmen call it the google, or googly.

1955 K. R. Miller & R. S. Whitington Cricket Typhoon i. ii. 32 In..Yorkshire, the ‘Chinaman’ is regarded as the lefthand bowler's off-break... In Australia..the ‘Chinaman’ is..the left-hander's googly.

1916 Anzac Bk. 128 You could reach it in three bomb~throws, if the last of the three happened to be a ‘googly’ and swerved in from the off.

1941 S. J. Baker Pop. Dict. Austral. Slang 32 Googly, an awkward question which a person would rather not answer.

1947 I. J. C. Brown Say Word 60 Australian airmen called a bomb both a bosey and a googly during the war.