Category: Etymology

Q: I assume “chintzy” (gaudy, cheap, trashy) is derived from “chintz” (the multicolored cotton fabric). But chintz isn’t necessarily gaudy, cheap, or trashy. How did “chintzy” get its negative sense?

A: You’re right that the adjective “chintzy” comes from the name of the usually glazed printed cotton fabric known as “chintz,” which isn’t particularly inexpensive or garish.

The adjective got its negative sense in the mid-19th century when British textile factories were making cheap imitations of the original handmade chintz from India.

English borrowed the noun “chintz” in the early 17th century from Hindi, where छींट (chint) referred to the fabric. The Indian term comes from चित्र (chitra), Sanskrit for spotted or variegated.

The earliest English example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a list of trade goods in a collection of stories by sailors about their travels:

“Callicoes white and coloured” and “Pintados [floral cottons], Chints and Chadors.” From Purchas His Pilgrimage (1614), stories collected by the Anglican clergyman Samuel Purchas.

(Interestingly, the mention of “Cublai Can” and his palace at “Xamdu” in a 1625 edition of Purchas His Pilgrimage inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan,” according to the website of the British Library.)

The next OED citation for “chintz” is from an entry for Sept. 5, 1663, in The Diary of Samuel Pepys: “Bought my wife a Chinke; that is, a paynted Indian Callico for to line her new Study.”

The first Oxford example with the modern “chintz” spelling appeared about a century later: “Japan wares, calicoes, chintz, muslins, silks” (from The History of America, 1783, by the Scottish historian William Robertson).

The adjective “chintzy” began appearing in the 19th century, according to the dictionary’s citations.

The OED defines it as “decorated or covered with chintz; suggestive of a pattern in chintz.” And in extended use, the dictionary says, it means “suburban, unfashionable, petit-bourgeois, cheap; mean, stingy.”

The earliest Oxford citation for “chintzy” is from a Sept. 18, 1851, letter by George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann Evans, to her half-sister Fanny Evans Houghton.

In this expanded version of the citation, Eliot is apparently using “chintzy” in the extended sense of unfashionable when she asks Fanny to choose a fabric for her:

“I should like a muslin with a more prevailing hue. The quality of the spotted one is the best, but the effect is chintzy and would be unbecoming. The one with the reddish flowers would have a better effect but the quality is not so good. I am sure you can judge what I want. If among the new ones, Bailey has a muslin with flounces, having a certain tone of colour not yellow or pink—in fact such an one as I know you would like—pray choose. I want poor old Mrs. West to make it while I am here, so I shall be glad to have it soon. Do not be anxious about it as it can be exchanged if unsuitable.”

So how did “chintzy,” an adjective derived from “chintz,” a luxurious hand-painted or hand-printed fabric from India, get this negative sense?

Sarah Fee, editor of Cloth That Changed the World: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz (2020), says “chintzy” appeared at a time when “Britain’s factories had flooded world markets with cheap imitations of chintz.”

Fee, a senior curator of fashion and textiles at the Royal Ontario Museum, says the industrial imitations made the fabric “widely available to the masses, disassociating any original connotation of luxury.”

She made her comments on websites of the BBC and ROM. Here’s  an image from the BBC page of a palampore (a wall or bed hanging) made in southeast India for the Western market, around 1720-1740:

Finally, we should mention that “cheetah,” the name of the large, spotted cat, comes from चीता (cita), Hindi for the cat, and चित्र (citra), Sanskrit for spotted or variegated.

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Q: The adjective “special” becomes “especially” when used as an adverb. Why isn’t it “specially”? Have any other words had a similar historical development?

A: Both “special” and “especial” have been adjectives in English for hundreds of years. Likewise, “specially” and “especially” have been adverbs nearly as long.

The words are ultimately derived from specialis, a Latin adjective referring to a particular species or something special as opposed to general, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

English borrowed “special” from Anglo-Norman, where speciall had the original Latin meaning of something specific. It borrowed “especial” from Old French, where the word had developed a secondary sense of preeminent or important.

In English, “special” is generally preferred in uses related to the original Latin sense, while “especial” is mainly used in the secondary Old French sense.

As the OED explains, “the two forms especial and special differ materially in use; the latter (owing perhaps to its closer relation to the Latin etymon) is preferred in applications arising proximately from the primary sense, while the former is chiefly confined to the derivative sense. The distinction is still more marked in the adverbs especially, specially.”

When the adjective “special,” the oldest of the English terms, appeared in writing in the late 12th century, it meant “having a close or exclusive connection with a specified person, thing, or set; own, particular, individual,” the OED says.

The dictionary’s earliest citation is from Ancrene Riwle, an anonymous guide for monastic women, written sometime before 1200:

“Nule ich naut þet ani seo ow bute leaue habbe of ouwer special meister” (“I do not want anyone to see you unless he has leave of your special master”).

When “especial” showed up in the late 14th century, the OED says, it meant “pre-eminent, exceptionally distinguished,” and now chiefly refers to “feelings, qualities, or attributes.”

The first Oxford example is from Chaucer’s “Tale of Melibeus” in The Canterbury Tales (circa 1386). In this passage, Prudence, the wife of Melibeus, advises him on how to deal with his enemies:

“First schul ye clepe to youre counseil a fewe of youre frendes that ben especial” (“First you shall call to your council a few of your friends that are especial [particularly esteemed]”).

When “specially,” the first of the adverbs, appeared in Middle English, it meant “for a special purpose,” according to the OED. The first Oxford citation is from The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, an account of early British history, written sometime before 1300.

In this passage, the King of Germany appeals to King John of England to accept being overruled by the Pope in a dispute over the choice for a new Archbishop of Canterbury:

“Þe king of alimayne sende specialliche inou to king Ion þat he wiþdrowe him of is wou” (“The king of Germany sent [a message] especially to King John to forget his wound”).

When the adverb “especially” showed up a century later, the OED says, it meant “in an especial manner; principally, chiefly.” The earliest example, which we’ve expanded here, is from The Chester Whitsun Plays, circa 1400:

“Sybbell, I praye thee especiallye, / By signe thou woulde me certiffye, / What tyme that lorde so royallye, / To raigne he shal begyne” (“Sibyl, I pray to thee especially to tell me with a sign what time the lord so royally shall begin to reign”).

Getting back to your question, English is a Germanic language that has many borrowings from non-Germanic languages. The major source of these loanwords is Latin, either directly or indirectly by way of French.

And as we’ve noted above, the two etymological sources of “special,” “especial,” “specially,” and “especially” are Latin and French. In other words, they evolved much like many other English words.

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Q: How did “defenestrate,” a word for throwing someone out the window, become a word for forcing someone out of a job?

A: Most of the 10 standard dictionaries we regularly consult define “defenestrate” literally as to throw someone out a window and figuratively as to remove someone from a position of authority.

The figurative use of a word for throwing someone out a window isn’t all that surprising. We throw people under the bus and to the wolves, we throw our hats in the ring, throw good money after bad, and throw monkey wrenches into the machinery.

The literal usage, which comes from fenestra, Latin for “window,” first appeared in the early 17th century as a noun, “defenestration,” and an adjective, “defenestrated,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

As the OED explains, the usage can be traced to “an incident in which, on the 23rd of May 1618, a group of Protestant Bohemian protestors threw two Catholic imperial officials and their secretary out of a window in Prague Castle, thus helping to precipitate the Thirty Years’ War.”

As it turned out, the two imperial regents, Jaroslav Martinic and Vilém Slavata, as well as their secretary, Philip Fabricius, survived. Martinic later said they fell 30 cubits (45 feet) into a dry moat.

The OED’s earliest citation for “defenestration” was recorded the following year. The noun appears in notes recorded at a meeting in London on Sept. 10, 1619, at which officials discussed a letter about the Prague incident that had been written to King James I of England on June 16, 1618:

“the Bohemians wrote a letter unto his Ma^tie wherein they gave him an accompte [account] … of the defenestration of the Counsailours” (from Letters and Other Documents Illustrating the Relations Between England and Germany, 1868, by Samuel R. Gardiner).

The first OED citation for the adjective “defenestrated” is from a letter written about the incident by Sir Henry Wotton on Nov. 22, 1620, referring to “two of the defenestrated men” (The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 1907, by L. P. Smith).

However, we’ve found a slightly earlier example in a margin note on a Nov. 18, 1620, letter Wotton wrote on the same subject: “Both defenestrated at Prague, and their messenger, a kind of notary, likewise banished.”

When the verb showed up in the early 20th century in an article about Bohemia, it apparently referred to the incident in Prague and other defenestrations:

“You may still see the windows through which were thrown town councillors and others, ‘defenestrated’ with truly Slav impartiality” (“Bohemia—a New Country for the Artist,” by Val C. Princep, The Magazine of Art, January 1904).

The OED says the verb soon took on a colloquial sense: “to dismiss, discard, or dispose of (a person or thing); esp. to remove (a person) from a position of power or authority.”

The first example for this figurative usage comes from a medical journal and refers to spurning vaccination: “This does not mean the whole theory of vaccines must be defenestrated” (Medicine and Surgery, December 1917).

In the next citation, a group of Italian workers oust their bosses: “They defenestrate the manager, expropriate the owners, and go on producing the goods just the same” (The Freeman, April 14, 1920).

And we found this more recent example about British politics: “The defenestration of Boris Johnson had little to do with morality. At its core, it was about revenge” (National Review, July 13, 2022).

Although the usage is generally figurative these days, it’s still sometimes used literally, as in this headline: “Putin Critic Tycoon Pavel Antov Defenestrated in New Delhi” (Jewish Press, Dec. 27, 2022). Antov died after a suspicious fall from a third-floor window of a luxury hotel.

A final note: One of the dictionaries we consult, Collins, includes this definition of “defenestrate” in computing: “to stop using the Windows operating system.”

* We borrowed the title of this post from a Feb. 11, 2019, headline by our friend Merrill Perlman in her Language Corner column in the Columbia Journalism Review

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Q: Many riddles are ridiculous. Could “riddle” and “ridiculous” be related?

A: No, “riddle” comes from rædels, Old English for the word game, while “ridiculous” is ultimately derived from ridere, classical Latin for to laugh.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “riddle” in this sense as “a question or statement intentionally phrased to require ingenuity in ascertaining its answer or meaning, frequently used as a game or pastime.”

The first OED example is from an Old English translation of the Hexateuch, the first six books of the Hebrew Bible (the Torah plus Joshua). Here’s an expanded version of the citation from Numbers 12:8:

“Ic sprece to him mude to mude 7 openlice næs ðurh rædelsas” (“I speak to him face to face and clearly not through riddles”).

The OED says rædels comes from the Germanic base of rædan, Old English for to read, which originally meant to consider, guess, discover, and foretell as well as to scan writing silently or aloud.

In case you’re wondering, the “s” of the singular rædels was dropped in Middle English on the mistaken impression that it was a plural ending.

As for “ridiculous,” the OED says it entered English through one of two adjectives derived from ridere: the classical Latin ridiculus or the post-classical Latin ridiculosus. Both meant laughable.

The earliest OED citation for “ridiculous,” which we’ve expanded, is from a 16th-century treatise on education. This passage discusses whether the image of God can be in every man if some men are not very godlike:

“If that whiche is in euery mannes bodye were the ymage of godde, Certes thanne [certainly then] the ymage of godde were not onely diuers [diverse], but also horrible, monstruouse, and in some part ridiculouse: that is to say, to be laughed at” (Of the Knowledge Whiche Maketh a Wise Man, 1533, by Sir Thomas Elyot).

Finally, here’s a more recent, expanded example from “Eminent Domain,” a short story by Antonya Nelson, in the Jan. 26, 2004, issue of The New Yorker:

“This same newspaper had announced the arrival of Mary Annie’s first grandchild early the summer before, a little girl, named something fanciful and trendily ridiculous, something that her parents, particularly her mother, Meredith, former dope dealer and hell-raiser, hoped and prayed would suit her as she emerged into the world.”

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Q: I was in England as part of my sabbatical research and visited an old town hall with a courtroom dating from Elizabethan times. A guide explained that the wooden panels surrounding the jury box were removable and that’s where the idea of empaneling a jury came from. It sounds bogus to me. What do you think?

A: The verb “empanel” comes from the use of the noun “panel” in Middle English for a piece of parchment on which the names of jurors were written.

(The usual spelling of the verb has been “impanel” in American English and “empanel” in British English, but a search with Google’s Ngram viewer indicates that “empanel” is now equally popular in the US.)

In fact, the verb—in both spellings—showed up in Middle English before the noun was used for the typically wainscotted wooden panels of a jury box.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the verb is made up of the prefix “em-”  (“to put (something) into or upon”) and a “now rare” sense of the noun “panel” (“the slip or roll of parchment on which the names of jurors are listed”).

English adopted the verb in the early 15th century from the Anglo-Norman empaneler, which dates back to the late 14th century with the same sense. The post-classical Latin impanellare also had that meaning.

The verb was spelled “enpanel” when it first appeared in Middle English. The earliest OED citation is from a February 1426 entry in the Rolls of Parliament, the official records of the English Parliament:

“All such persones as buth enpanelled to passe in enquestes in þe kyngus court” (“All such persons as be empaneled to serve in inquests in the king’s court”).

The dictionary’s first example with the “impanel” spelling is from a November 1439 entry in the Rolls of Parliament:

“Tho men the which hath estat to thaire oeps … be retourned and impanelled” (“Those men which have property to their use … be returned and impaneled”).

And the first Oxford citation for the “empanel” spelling is from a 1467 list of ordinances governing guilds in the City of Worcester:

“The seid seriaunts [servants] empanelle no man to be in gret inquest” (English Gilds: The Original Ordinances of More Than One Hundred Early English Gilds, 1892, by Joshua Toulmin Smith and Lucy Toulmin Smith).

As for the noun “panel,” it took on its legal sense in the late 14th century. In this OED citation from Piers Plowman (circa 1378), an allegorical poem by William Langland, it refers to a parchment list of jurors:

“Ne put hem in panel to don hem pliȝte here treuthe” (“Not put them in panel [on parchment] to make them plight the truth”).

It wasn’t until the late 15th century that “panel” took on its sense of “a distinct, typically rectangular section or compartment of a wainscot, door, shutter, etc.,” according to the OED.

The dictionary’s earliest recorded example is a 1498 entry in the Ledger of Andrew Halyburton, 1492-1503, edited by the Scottish historian Cosmo Innes in 1867.  Halyburton was a Scottish trade official stationed in Flanders:

“4 dossin of pannellis of rassit vark cost 3 grotis the stek” (“4 dozen panels of raised work [in relief] cost 3 groats [silver coins] apiece”).

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Q: Is it “gel” or “jell”? I offer the following: “There’s a point in the process where things start to gel/jell.” I’ve searched several style manuals and usage guides to no avail. Is one of them correct or preferred or to be avoided like the plague?

A: “Gel” and “jell” are two different words with two different etymologies, though they mean the same thing when used figuratively as verbs in a sentence like the one you ask about. The two terms are homophones, words that are pronounced the same but differ in meaning or origin or spelling.

“Gel” is derived from “gelatin” and “jell” from “jelly.” However, both verbs ultimately come from the same Latin source, gelare (to freeze), according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.

Standard dictionaries have separate entries for “jell” (as a verb) and “gel” (as a noun and a verb). When the verb “gel” is used in the past tense or as a participle, the “l” is doubled.

Both verbs are usually defined much the same way. Literally, they refer to a liquid or semiliquid that sets or becomes more solid. Figuratively, they refer to a project or an idea that takes a definite form or begins to work well.

American Heritage, for example, has these definitions and examples for the two verbs when used figuratively:

• Gel: “To take shape or become clear: Plans for the project are finally starting to gel.”
• Jell: “To take shape or become clear; crystallize: A plan of action finally jelled in my mind.”

We haven’t found a usage manual or style guide that discusses the two terms, though some standard dictionaries describe “jell” as an Americanism or more common in American English. The New Oxford American Dictionary, for example, says it’s “mainly North American.”

A search with Google’s Ngram Viewer, which tracks words and phrases in digitized books, indicates that “gelled” is more popular than “jelled.” (The results include both literal and figurative senses.) Additional searches show that “gelled” is more popular in American as well as British English. With those results in mind, we’d prefer “gel” for the verb.

As for the etymology, the story begins in the late 14th century when the noun “jelly” first appeared in Middle English. It originally referred to a glutinous food made by boiling and cooling skin, tendons, bones and other animal products.

And it was originally spelled with a “g” because, as we’ve written before, the letter “j” didn’t become established in English spelling until the 17th century, though it had been used previously in place of “i” at the end of a numeral.

The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary uses “geli” in the compound “gelicloth,” a cloth to strain jelly: “Et pro iij. vergis tele pro j gelicloth, xviijs.” From an expense entry dated March 20, 1393, in Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land Made by Henry Earl of Derby (1894), edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith. The earl was later King Henry IV of England.

The next OED citation, with “gely” as a stand-alone noun, is from a Middle English poem in which animals debate their usefulness to humans: “Of the shepe … Of whos hede boylled … Ther cometh a gely and an oynement” (from Debate of the Horse, Goose, and Sheep, circa 1440, by John Lydgate).

The “jelly” spelling showed up in the 17th century. This is the dictionary’s earliest example: “Jelly which we make of the flesh of young piggs, calves feet, and a cocke.” From A True & Exact History of the Island of Barbados (1657), by Richard Ligon, an English author who managed and co-owned a plantation on the island.

In the 18th century, the OED says, the noun came to mean “a preparation of the juice of fruit, or other vegetable substances, thickened into a similar consistence,” or “a preparation of gelatin and fruit juices in cubes or crystals, from which table-jellies are made.”

The dictionary cites these two examples from a medical treatise on diets for people with various constitutions and ailments:

“The Jelly or Juice of red Cabbage, bak’d in an Oven” and “Robs [Syrups] and Gellies of Garden Fruits.” From Practical Rules of Diet in the Various Constitutions and Diseases of Human Bodies (1732), by John Arbuthnot, a Scottish author, physician, and mathematician.

When the verb “jell” appeared in the 19th century, it meant to congeal or become jelly. The earliest OED citation, which we’ve expanded, is from Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, published in two volumes in 1868 and ’69:  “The—the jelly won’t jell—and I don’t know what to do!” (Vol. 2, 1869).

The first Oxford example for the verb in its figurative sense of “to take definite or satisfactory shape” is from the early 20th century: “[He] remarked of his countrywomen’s minds that they ‘didn’t jell’; but he possibly, and mistakenly, thought he was talking American” (Daily Chronicle, London, March 20, 1908).

As for “gelatin” (the source of the noun and verb “gel”), it originally referred to the substance that’s the basis of the jelly made from animal tissues. The earliest OED example, which we’ve expanded, is from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the year 1800:

“In relating the preceding experiments, I have had frequent occasion to remark, that a quantity of that animal jelly which is more or less soluble in water,  and which is distinguished by the name of gelatin, was obtained from many of the marine bodies, such as the Sponges.”

The OED says the noun “gel,” a short form of “gelatin,” appeared at the end of the 19th century as a term in chemistry for “a semi-solid colloidal system consisting of a solid dispersed in a liquid.”

The dictionary’s earliest citation is from “On the Structure of Cell Protoplasm,” a paper by W. B. Hardy in The Journal of Physiology (May 11, 1899):

“Graham’s nomenclature is as follows: The fluid state, colloidal solution, is the ‘sol,’  the solid state the ‘gel.’ The fluid constituent is indicated by a prefix. Thus an aqueous solution of gelatine is a ‘hydrosol,’ and on setting it becomes a ‘hydrogel.’ ” The reference is to Thomas Graham, known as the founder of colloidal chemistry.

When the verb “gel” appeared in the early 20th century, it meant to become a gel in the scientific sense: “Ligno-cellulose fibre … does not gel so readily by cold mechanical treatment as does cellulose” (Scientific American Supplement, September 1917).

The figurative sense of the verb appeared several decades later: “The combination of drawingroom and documentary failed to gel” (The Observer, London, March 30, 1958).

We’ll end with the hairdressing sense of the noun “gel,” which Oxford defines as “a jelly-like substance used for setting or styling the hair, sold as a jelly.”

The dictionary’s first citation is from an advertisement in the journal American Hairdresser and Beauty Culture (July 26, 1958): “Contains miracle deprovinyllol/DEP/styling gel.”

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Q: In a novel I’m reading, a character in London during World War II says to himself, “Can’t fix anything if I get shot for a Jerry spy.” I recognise this use of “for” (being British myself), but it  seems an old-fashioned, RAF-blokes-with-mustaches construction. What can you tell us about it?

A: We don’t believe that use of “for” in The Coldest War, a 2012 novel by Ian Tregillis, is all that uncommon now in American or British English, though it’s usually seen in the phrases “taken for” and “mistaken for,” where the preposition “for” means “as” or “as being” or “to be.”

Here are a few recent examples from the news media in the US and the UK:

“Two deputies will be suspended and a Florida sheriff has apologized after a visually impaired man was arrested last month when his walking cane was mistaken for a gun” (NBC News, Nov. 9, 2022).

“Why I Keep Getting Mistaken for a Conservative” (headline of an article by the American culture writer and novelist Kat Rosenfield in National Review, Oct. 27, 2022).

“No one likes to feel like they’ve been taken for a fool, least of all financial markets” (The New Statesman, Oct. 12, 2022).

“As a humanist who writes about the impact of digital technology on our lives, I am often mistaken for a futurist” (The Guardian, Sept. 4, 2022).

The Oxford English Dictionary says “for” here means “in the character of,” “in the light of,” or “as equivalent to,” and adds that “as or as being may generally be substituted.” The preposition used in this sense first appeared in Old English and is similar to terms in Old Frisian and Old Saxon.

The dictionary’s earliest example, which we’ve expanded, is from the epic poem Beowulf, which may have been written as early as 725:

“Me men sægde Þæt þu ðe for sunu wolde hereri[n]c habban” (“Men say to me that you wish to have this hero for a son”). Wealhtheow, the Danish queen, is speaking to her husband, King Hrothgar, about Beowulf, who is sitting between the king’s two sons, Hrethric and Hrothmund, at a banquet.

And here’s an expanded OED example from the 18th century: “You’ll be hanged for a Pirate, and the particulars examined afterwards” (The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719, by Daniel Defoe).

We’ll end with this arboreal OED example from The Silverado Squatters (1883), Robert Louis Stevenson’s memoir about his honeymoon with Fanny Vandegrift in Napa Valley, California:

“The oak is no baby; even the madrona, upon these spurs of Mount Saint Helena, comes to a fine bulk and ranks with forest trees—but the pines look down upon the rest for underwood.”

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Q: What is the origin of the term “stump” in the political sense? (X stumps for Candidate Y; Z gives a stump speech.)

A: The short answer is that the political sense of “stump” comes from using the base of a large felled tree as a platform for speaking.

For the long answer, we’ll have to go back a few hundred years, when the noun “stump” originally referred to the remaining part of a severed human limb, not that of a fallen tree.

The term is derived from similar words in other Germanic languages meaning mutilated, blunt, or dull. In Middle English, it originally meant “the part remaining of an amputated or broken-off limb or portion of the body,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The dictionary’s earliest citation is from an Arthurian alliterative poem in which a knight’s arm, cut off in battle, is miraculously restored:

“Þan Ioseph … bad þat mon knele, þe arm helede a-ȝeyn hol to þe stompe” (“then Joseph … bade the man kneel; the arm healed again whole to the stump”). From Joseph of Arimathie (circa 1350), edited in 1871 by Walter William Skeat.

The dictionary notes the use of the term in the expression “fight to the stumps,” which it describes as “apparently an allusion” to a 17th-century English ballad:

“For when his leggs were smitten of, he fought vpon his stumpes.” From “The Ballad of Chevy Chase” (c. 1650), published in 1889 in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited by Francis J. Child.

In the 15th century, the OED says, the noun “stump” came to mean the “portion of the trunk of a felled tree that remains fixed in the ground; also, a standing tree-trunk from which the upper part and the branches have been cut or broken off.”

The dictionary’s first example is from Promptorium Parvulorum (c. 1440), an English-Latin dictionary: “Stumpe, of a tree hewyn don, surcus.” We’re unfamiliar with surcus, but we assume it’s a rare Latin term for “stump” and related to the diminutive surculus (“twig”).

Getting back to your question, the OED says the political sense of “stump” comes from the use of the term for the base of “a large felled tree used as a stand or platform for a speaker.”

The earliest citation is from a 1775 Tory song, printed as a broadside, that mocked George Washington’s July 3 arrival at the Cambridge common to take formal command of the Continental Army: “Upon a stump he placed himself Great Washington did he.”

The OED’s earliest citation for the phrase “stump speech” is from a Sept. 8, 1820, letter by a Scottish traveller in the US. Here’s an expanded version of the citation:

“The harangues are called stump-speeches, from the practice of candidates mounting the stumps of trees, and there addressing themselves to the people” (Letters From America, Containing Observations on the Climate and Agriculture of the Western States, 1822, by James Flint).

We were amused by this earlier example we found in the Georgia Historic Newspapers database:

“And I would urge him, should he again attempt stump speeches, to avoid addressing the people as ‘gentlemen of the jury’ ” (Georgia Journal, Milledgeville, Aug. 1, 1810).

By the early 18th century, the noun “stump” was being used loosely to mean “a place or an occasion of political oratory,” the dictionary says. The first example is from an 1816 debate in Congress:

“I [a Virginian member] think his [a South Carolinian’s] arguments are better calculated for what is called on this side of the river [the Potomac] stump, than for this Committee” (The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, 1853).

The OED adds that the term was used in expressions like “to go on the stump” and “to take the stump,” in the sense of “to go about the country making political speeches, whether as a candidate or as the advocate of a cause.”

Here’s an example we’ve found from the mid-19th century that includes the expression “take to the stump” as well as the noun “stump” used attributively, or adjectivally:

“Why didn’t you ever take to the stump? You’d make a famous stump orator!” From Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), by Harriet Beecher Stowe. (Here Alfred St. Clare is speaking to his twin brother Augustine, the father of Eva and a brief owner of Tom.)

As for the verb “stump,” it meant to stumble over an obstacle when it showed up in The Owl and the Nightingale, an anonymous poem written in the late 12th or early 13th century:

“Ne beoþ heo nouht alle forlore þat stumpeþ at þe fleysses more” (“They [women] are not at all lost if they stump [stumble] over a root of the flesh [lust]”).

And at the beginning of 17th century, the OED says, the verb came to mean “to walk clumsily, heavily, or noisily, as if one had a wooden leg.” The first citation is from a satirical poem:

“Some [dames] in their pantophels [high-heeled slippers] too stately stompe” (Tom Tel-Troths Message, 1600, by John Lane).

In the 19th century, Oxford says, the verb took on the sense of “to make stump speeches” or “to travel over (a district) making stump speeches.”

The dictionary’s earliest citation is from Peter Pilgrim, an 1838 novel by the American writer Robert Montgomery Bird: “I stumped through my district, and my fellow-citizens sent me to Congress!”

Over the years, the word “stump” has taken on various other senses as a noun or verb, including the “stump” of a pencil, eraser, etc. worn down by use (1516); one of the “stumps,” or upright sticks, that form a wicket in cricket (1730); to be “stumped” (baffled, 1807), and “up a stump” (puzzled, 1829).

[Note: This post was updated on June 2, 2023.]

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