I found an 1889 example of honky-tonk: some 35 years earlier than the OED's 1924 honky-tonk, and some five years before their 1894 honk-a-tonk.
The Fort Worth Daily Gazette (Fort Worth, Tex.), of January 24, 1889:
A petition to the council is being circulated for signatures, asking that the Honky Tonk theater on Main street be reopened.
I found a good definition in The Iola Register (Iola, Kan.), June 23, 1893:
When a particularly vicious and low grade theater opens up in an Oklaholma town they call it a "honky-tonk." The name didn't just "come from" anything; it just growed.
The Sun (New York [N.Y.]), November 26, 1897:
BURNED DOWN THE "HONKY TONK"
Louisiana "regulators" break up a Vicious
Resort and Shoot a Man.
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 25.-Last night a party of regulators, about thirty-five in number, appeared at the Gramercy sugar refinery, in St. James parish, to break up a "Honky Tonk" there, where gambling, drinking, and all manner of vice prevailed. The regulators severely whipped the eight negro women in the "Honky Tonk" as well as the men they found there. Some of the negroes ran under the house to escape the beating. The building was set on fire and burned to the ground. Fears are entertained that some of the negroes were burned to death under it.
Oscar Dressner, a white storekeeper, who lived near the "Honky Tonk," came out to see what the regulators were doing, and they, fearing that he would recognize them, opened fire on him. He received four dangerous wounds in the back. Ho was brought to the Turo Infirmiry in New Orleans for treatment. He says he can Identify five of the men engaged In the
affair.
More: 1898, 1898, 1898, 1898, 1898, 1899, 1899
The OED’s first citation for ‘let her rip’ is dated 1840. In this sense, the dictionary describes it as colloquial and originally of US origin. It is defined as ‘an exhortation not to restrict the speed of something; (hence) an invitation to act without restraint or to pursue a reckless course’.
Best Answer
The word operator has had several slang meanings over time, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. A brief list of the time and definition of operator is:
The phrase smooth operator starts to appear in the late 1890s. For example, in "The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason", it says:
Here, a smooth operator is someone who is "smooth" at running a business or set of financial operations (the senses from the earlier 1800s). This is not the only application of smooth operator. In the 1980s, the OED notes the following usage:
The "operation" has changed over time. In the 1700 and 1800s, the "operation" was financial--it referred to either theft operations, speculating on stocks (operate as a verb meant "To deal or speculate in stocks or shares; to buy and sell commodities as a broker"), or business operations. Then, in the 1900s, the "operations" referred to the "business" of playing at courtship and seducing women.
Thus, now a smooth operator can refer to the "business" of financial operations or seduction operations, with smooth modifying operator in a primarily (and possibly solely) negative way.