second papers

plural noun

1. (before 1952) an official petition for naturalization by a resident alien desiring to become a U.S. citizen, filed two years after the first papers and upon having lived in the United States for five years.

Word History and Origins

Origin of second papers¹

An Americanism dating back to 1910–15

Example Sentences

The period of at least two years intervening between the issue of the first and second papers was presumably designed to give opportunity for investigation of the candidate’s fitness, but rarely serves that purpose now.

From Project Gutenberg

Even so, if the past few years have been mortally difficult for second papers�only 29 cities still have fully independent, competing dailies�they have been almost as perilous for the second wire service.

From Time Magazine Archive

Some of the second papers now in deepest trouble were slowest to abandon the autocratic attitudes that gave them their character.

From Time Magazine Archive

Perhaps it is no accident that the papers Hearst owns in Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle are the troubled second papers in those cities.

From Time Magazine Archive

Only a few of the adult male settlers have second papers; about nine tenths have first papers, while the rest are totally unnaturalized.

From Project Gutenberg