My wife gave me as Christmas reading: The Word Detective, Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary, A Memoir by John Simpson. Although this book is now a few years old, I don't think anyone has yet commented on its passage about the transition to the online world:

"Scholars – or just ordinary members of the public – could mail us with even newer and better evidence that they had managed to squeeze out of their memories or their databases. And they did. No sooner had we announced to the world that the earliest record of the word numismatics dated from 1803 than we were informed that it also had occurred in 1790 – as we hadn't thought to check in Adolf Ristell's Characters and Anecdotes of the Court of Sweden of that year. But this didn't annoy us – it was what was supposed to happen."

A fun topic. I have never thought about the etymology. Given its Latin roots, I am guessing the earliest use of the term goes way back.

I knew someone would have an earlier example - I guessed perhaps someone on your list would have been the one to give the example to the OED. I forgot to mention that the book was about the earliest use in the English language - not surprised there would be earlier Latin.