Definition of "Columbus"

"It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world."

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton

"But, boy the powers of mud, I belayve you fellers mane to make an indepindint cruise in the Orient, and go Columbusing all over the ocean boy the way ye's talk!"

1893, American Boys Afloat: Or, Cruising in the Orient, page 150

Callous as the old mummy was about anything and everything save his pet hobby, archaeology, he would sit up and take notice of such a vision ; and Peter felt that, having Columbused the discovery, he had the better right to it.

1908, Out West, volume 28, page 90

To the west of the river lay the country in which I went Columbusing — the enchanted desert whose southern boundary was where the sky reached down and merged with the earth curve, and whose northern limit was the Harqua Hala range […]

1908, Sunset, volume 20, page 271

No street car line passes it, so you'll have to do a little Columbusing on your own account-to find it-—but it's worth discovering, and President Gardner's phophecy sounds conservative.

1921, Forest Leaves, volume 15, page lxx

When his black friend tells him that many people knew about the bar before he did, his white friend retorts by saying that he “Columbused it”; i.e., discovered it for white people before a gaggle of hip white people flooded in.

2014, Justin Simien, Dear White People, Simon and Schuster, page 97

Of course, there is no bouncer, but we can be careful not to Columbus other culture's traditions.

2014 July 6, Brenda Salinas, “‘Columbusing’: The Art Of Discovering Something That Is Not New”, in NPR‎

He then lists other things that have been Columbused, such as twerking by Miley Cyrus and hummus by “health conscious whities.”

2015, Frederic Charles Schaffer, Elucidating Social Science Concepts, Routledge, page 54