Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US campus) Yale University; thus also an alumni of Yale.

1888		Columbia Spectator 22-4 51: The peals of laughter from the editorial board of this Journal at the presumption of the Elis shook the building, when they beheld the article in the Yale Record.
[1890		N.Y. Tribune 24 June 7/4: Then ‘Eli Yale’ was sung [...] There are 147 members in the graduating class].
1893		Town Topics 30 40/2: The Yale football men have always stuck up their noses at the hint of the Quakers being in the same class with them, and this, too, the Pennsylvania boys had heard all about and had put down on their score against the Elis.
1894		N.Y. Tribune 25 Nov. 1/1: [headline] ‘ELI, ELI, ELI, Yale!’ The Blue Wins the Big Game.
1895		J.S. Wood Yale Yarns 145: They opened a bot., and got one or two other Elis in with them.
1899		Welch & Camp Yale 27: Back of that fence was a stretch of bare ground, trod by the sons of Eli from time immemorial [DA].
1901		A. Hirsh ‘Boola Boola’ [Yale Fight Song] When we rough house poor old hahvahd / They will holler, ‘Boola boo’ / Oh Yale, Eli Yale! Oh Yale, Eli Yale!
1913		C. Porter ‘Bulldog’ [Yale Fight Song] Bulldog! Bulldog! / Bow, wow, wow / Eli Yale / [...] / When the sons of Eli / Break through the line / That is the sign we hail. [Ibid.] ‘Bingo’ [song] Bingo, bingo, bingo! That’s the lingo / Eli is bound to win.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 64: It was claimed though never proved that on one occasion the hired Elis were swelled by one of the real thing.
1949		Time 14 Mar. 51/1: When James Rowland Angell [...] arrived in New Haven in 1921, he was the first non-Eli since 1766 to have been elected president of Yale [DA].
1991		J. Whalen Gridiron Greats Now Gone 211: Woodruff was a four-year (1885–1888) regular guard for Yale when the Elis compiled a combined 38-1-1 record.
2004		Yale Daily News 29 Nov. 🌐 [headline] Elis outsmart Harvard with prank at Game.