When did the colloquial "bro" come into use?
I did research and came up with nothing. It only shows "brother". I'm talking about "bro" as a colloquialism, when reffering to a guy, like saying "dude". For example:
Pass the chips, bro.
Hey bro; you coming to the party later?
According to dictionary.com the expression "bro" as a short for brother dates back to 1830-40, but it is only arond the mid-20th century that "bro" began to be used outside the familiar or religious contexts:
The following extract from Oxfordwords.blog traces its origin and its more recent semantic changes:
For centuries, it was merely a graphic abbreviation of brother (properly bro.), occasionally put to colloquial use, like sis, to refer to a person’s male sibling.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that bro’s meaning began to stray from familial relationships and religious titles. More recently still, the word has taken on new life as a productive element forming new words and compounds, like brogrammer (a loutish male computer programmer), or curlbro (a gym rat who focuses too much attention on his biceps).
Bro’s meaning had begun to expand by the mid-20th century. It came to refer simply to a man (a synonym of ‘fellow’ or ‘guy’), or sometimes more specifically a black man. The rock critic Lester Bangs wrote in 1976, “if we the (presumably) white jass-buffs couldn’t get with it maybe it was only meant for the bros.”
Bro also became common as a term of direct address (“Hey, bro!”). These developments gave bro a bigger semantic footprint, but they didn’t completely sever the tie with brother, which had been used in similar ways even earlier.