Lazare Nicolas M. Carnot, Mémoire sur la relation qui existe entre les distances respectives de cinq point quelconques pris dans l'espace, p. 105 at Google Books
James Mill Peirce, A Text-book of Analytic Geometryat Google Books. The oldest citation in the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1907. The term "absolute value" is also used in contrast to "relative value".