The Origins of 15 Common Words & Phrases By analise.dubner [232 more lists]

Many of the words and phrases we use every day are things we take for granted in terms of what they mean now. But what did they originally mean? What are the origins of these everyday phrases and terms? Some of these might surprise you.

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1

Best Man

In feudal days, weddings were rife with the possibility that a rival lord would try to break up the ceremony and steal the bride for political reasons. To prepare for a possible battle, a groom would ask a friend with fighting skills to stand with him during his marriage and act as his Best Man, helping to defend his bride from possible kidnapping. Often, grooms would convince multiple friends and relatives to stand with him, and several peasant "maids" would be persuaded to stand with the bride, in the hope that if invaders came to disrupt the ceremony, they would be confused by the number of girls in party clothes, and possibly kidnap the wrong one.
2

Stool Pigeon

The origin of this phrase goes back to when pigeons were considered a good food source. Hunters would take a tame pigeon and tie it to a stool in order to attract its wild bretheren. Because the pigeon that was tied to the stool was used to trap others of its kind, the name "stool pigeon" became used to describe anyone who is used to sell his friends out.
3

Spill The Beans

In ancient Greece, some voting was done with beans. White and black beans were used to determine the nature of your vote. One would vote with the bean color for their choice and drop it in a jar to be counted by the officials later. However...as one might expect... on a few occasions a clumsy voter would knock over the jar and reveal the beans and the outcome of the vote.

This is how the phrase came to refer to someone who reveals the truth or hidden secrets.
4

Loophole

Today this word implies a way to get out of a contract. The origin goes all the way back to the Middle Ages and, believe it or not, a defensive architectural feature of castles. Up at the top of the fortifications, designers put in small, oval windows that were tapered to be wider inside and narrower from the outside (also called a "murder-hole"). This made the window difficult to hit from the outside by the enemies, but a good spot to fire arrows out of.

This opening was called the loophole and later the term came to represent any opening that gave an advantage to one side in an argument or contract.
5

Get The Sack

Sacked! In today's parlance, it means to get fired. The origin, however, is from the 17th century. Artisans used to come to work with their own tools for the job (usually in a sack). When an employer wanted to fire someone, all he did was hand him his sack and tell him to take his tools and leave. It still has the same meaning, only now the sack has been replaced by a cardboard box to take home our little cactus and nameplate.
6

Skeleton in the Closet

In the 17th Century, doctors of medicine found obtaining dead bodies for study was difficult. So difficult that they would be lucky to get one in their entire lifetime. Because of this , the body they obtained would be treasured and never discarded. But, obviously, society frowned on keeping corpses lying around. The doctor rectified this by keeping the skeleton in his closet. The practice was common enough that many patients just assumed that every doctor kept one hidden in there.

Eventually, the phrase came to be used for any unsavory secret that was hidden away from general public knowledge.
7

Gibberish

The term 'gibberish' means words that can't be understood. As with so many terms we use unawares today, this one has its roots in racism. Back in Europe, any foreigner with dark hair and olive skin was assumed to be from Egypt and were called, "Gypts." Later the word became "Gypsies". Because their accents were hard to understand, the words they spoke were termed "gibberish". This has mutated through time to also include "Jibber and "Jabber".
8

Put Up Your Dukes!

This is a common, if now old-fashioned, challenge to fight. The origin goes back to Frederick Augustus, the 2nd son of King George III. Frederick was the Duke of York and he was obsessed with fighting. Because he became synonymous with the activity, fighters nicknamed their fists "Dukes of York". The phrase later shorted to just "Dukes".
9

Stigmatize

This word has come to mean a stain or a mark of shame. It's origins are from the "Stigma" itself, which was a branding iron in Britain. When a criminal wasn't sentenced to death, they were branded with the stigma to mark them as criminals. For example: "A" meant adultery and "T"was for thief.

Later on, when we stopped branding people, society continued using the word when to label someone negatively... indicating that the person should feel shame.
10

Sleazy

The origin of this word comes from a linen cloth that didn't hold up well. It was originally sold in the German Silesian area and purchased by London merchants for resale at a very low price. Eventually the public came to realize that the cloth was a very poor quality, and it was nicknamed "Sleasie" for the area from which it has been manufactured. The word 'sleazy' soon became synonymous with anything that was of low-quality, didn't hold up, and was grungy-looking or inferior.
11

Honeymoon

According to tradition, a wedding couple was compelled to drink a fermented honeyed beverage for about a month after the wedding -- from the time of one full moon until the next -- for fertility and luck. This month of drinking and festivity was dubbed the "honeymoon."
12

Let The Cat Out Of The Bag

The origin of this one is pretty old, from the Middle Ages. Unscrupulous vendors in the marketplace would sometimes substitute a cat when someone bought a piglet, putting the cat in a bag where its thrashing would look like the struggle of a pig. Once the buyer walked away, they would let the cat out of the bag, revealing the trickery. I can't honestly imagine that the merchant would last very long in the marketplace.
13

Frisbee

This is more of a product name than a phrase, but it's pretty interesting. Mr. Frisbie was an excellent baker, establishing the Frisbie Pie Company which sold pies all across New England. Frisbie pies were especially popular among the students at Yale in the 20s, and soon Yale dorms were full of empty Frisbie Pie tins in the same way college kids today have towers of empty pizza boxes. The Yalies soon discovered that the Frisbie tins, if flung with a spinning motion, would fly through the air to be caught and returned by a fellow time-waster. The cry of ""Frisbie!"" was adopted as the game's equivalent of ""Fore!"" in golf to notify whoever was being flung at.

In 1948, a California building inspector and inventor named Fred Morrison capitalized on this game and made the first ""Frisbee,"" adding that extra letter to avoid legal trouble with Frisbie Pie.
14

Son of a Gun

The general idea behind this phrase can be traced back to the days of sailing ships, when the wives of sailors sometimes accompanied their husbands on long ocean voyages. As privacy was scarce aboard these ships, goes the story, if a woman gave birth during the voyage, the delivery would often take place in the most secluded place available, which was between the cannons on the ship's gun deck. The child's birth would then noted in the ship's log as "a son of a gun."
15

Smart Aleck

The phrase "smart alec" arose from the exploits of Alec Hoag. A celebrated pimp, thief, and confidence man operating in New York City in the 1840s, Hoag, along with his wife Melinda and an accomplice known as "French Jack", operated a con called the "panel game", a method by which prostitutes and their pimps robbed customers. He ended up going too far, however, when he cut the police out of a deal he'd made to keep out of prison.