Essay:Surprising Dates of Origin for Terms

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One can learn history simply by skimming a dictionary that has the date of origin for terms. There are many surprises. Add to our growing list:

New Term Origin date Comments
Advent 1100s The English language itself did not begin until after Christmas Day, 1066, when William the Conqueror became the first Norman King of England in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey.[1]
android 1727 Before being picked up by science fiction writers, the word was simply an adjective meaning "humanlike".
aftermath late 1400s according to Merriam-Webster, "aftermath" originated as an agricultural term for a second crop grown on the same soil, following the "math" or gathering of the first crop
Biblical 1780-1790 It's hard to imagine such a late date of origin. Perhaps the word became necessary as an increasing number of people turned away from the authority of the Bible?
busybody 1526 This problem predates Facebook by nearly 500 years!
complex 1652 a surprisingly late date of origin for such a widely used adjective
continental drift 1926 that's surprisingly recent for such a simple concept; wonder what held it up?
bill of rights 1798 Wow: that's many years after it was added to the Constitution!
common sense 1535 older than one might think
corvette 1636 Perhaps you thought a car company in Detroit invented this name for a sports car? Not by a long shot: it was a type of warship ranked just below a frigate
crocodile tears 1563 insincere compassion with fake tears; were there liberals back in 1563?
crucifix early 1200s wow, that's an early date of origin for an English word!
dead hand 1300s an oppressive, unjustified influence of the past; this problem is not new, and led to the Rule Against Perpetuities in property law
diploma 1702 The term "diploma" seems to be an invention of atheistic sentiments in the Enlightenment, and unrelated to scholarly achievement or even the development of the universities hundreds of years earlier
estoppel 1531 This is an early date of origin for a relatively sophisticated legal concept.
exclamation point 1824 never used, not even once, by the King James Version?
fellowship (verb) 1300s to gather together in honor of Christ, often in a new church ... yet it predates Protestantism by two centuries?!
fire and brimstone 1200s this concept is not new to describe the torment inflicted upon sinners
fission 1617 Looks like nuclear fission is not a new idea after all!
flagpole 1884 What did flags hang on for centuries before that? Flagstaffs.
foul play 1400s Predates baseball by 400 years; Merriam-Webster defines it to mean violence and especially murder.
free will 1200s That's surprisingly early for this terrific insight.
has-been 1606 It's surprising that this descriptive term predates modern media by several centuries!
hello 1889 What was the prior greeting? Is this surprisingly late date of origin due to the invention of the telephone?
incorrigible 1300s This term means incapable or unwilling to be corrected. Liberals have been around since the 1300s?!
John Hancock 1903 Why did it take more than a century for the famous signatory's name to become a colloquialism for "signature"?
landmark before 1100s Land was much more important in culture and the economy before the Information Age.
landlord before 1100s Think landlord problems are new? This is one of the very oldest words in the English language. That revelation then opens one's eyes to what the word really is: Lord of the land, in the feudal system.
monopolist 1601 someone who monopolizes - a concept that predates the Sherman Act by nearly three centuries!
Mother Nature 1551 that is more than 450 years ago! Today liberals avoid the term due to feminists.
pole vault 1890 Apparently this was not a recognized athletic field event much before the revival of the Olympics in 1896.
separation of church and state 1802 More than ten years after the adoption of the First Amendment, the least Christian of the early presidents (Thomas Jefferson) used the phrase for the first time in an appeasing letter to Baptists. (It's also important to note that he used the term to assure them that their religious rights took precedence over the government--not the other way around.) The Supreme Court did not endorse this phrase until the liberal Justice Hugo Black used the term in 1947 (Everson v. Board of Education). (The Court also quoted from the Jefferson without endorsing the phrase in the 1879 polygamy case of Reynolds v. United States).
theism 1678 Nearly a hundred years after "atheism" (1587). Perhaps such an obvious position that no word was required until atheism became more widespread?
theorem 1551 a surprisingly early date of origin for this important mathematical concept
triple play 1869 a term in baseball, but look how early it originated! That is only four years after the end of the Civil War, which confirms that baseball games were played among troops, even between the North and the South, during the War.[2]
utopia 1516 coined by Saint Thomas More from the Greek roots for "no" and "place", he made it the title of his book in demonstrating that a utopia can never exist.
weird 1400s originally referred to witchcraft, and Shakespeare used it for that meaning in Macbeth.
worldwide 1632 Did people really think in terms of the entire world nearly 400 years ago? Apparently so.
zero 1604 Not a word in English until after Shakespeare wrote most of his plays! Shakespeare never used the term "zero" in any of his surviving works.

See also