The ten words listed here were all originally used in specific military contexts in English before gaining broader use elsewhere in the language. As well as being the origin of these and many more words like them, military English is also one of the most fruitful and inventive sources of English slang and colloquialisms. The First World War alone is the birthplace of terms like civvy (shortened from ‘civilian’), ammo (‘ammunition’), recon (‘reconnaissance’), conchy (‘conscientious objector’), AWOL (‘absent without leave’), monkey suit (‘uniform’), washout (a ‘useless, ineffectual person’), and Blighty (a nickname for Great Britain), as well as the phrases to get in a flap (meaning to ‘panic’) and to be on the mat (to be ‘in trouble with the authorities’). The Second World War, meanwhile, provided English with such terms as snafu (‘mistake’), shufti (‘glance’), boot camp (training area), gremlin (‘bug or glitch in a system’), prang (‘crash’), brassed off (‘annoyed’, ‘fed up’), sad sack (‘outsider’, ‘inept person’), bogey (‘unidentified aircraft’), God-bothering (‘overly religious’), recce (‘reconnaissance’), stateside (‘in America’) and trigger-happy (‘overly prepared to shoot’).
It is a misconception that belfries are so named because they contain bells, as the word is in fact derived via French from a considerably earlier Germanic word, bergfrid, which referred simply to a defensive shelter. The word belfry itself first appeared in English in the early fourteenth century with this original meaning still essentially intact, and originally described a movable wooden tower used by besieging forces in attacking castles and similar fortifications, which could be used to shelter the attackers. Later and in more developed forms, a belfry was an offensive siege engine in its own right. Over the years, the use of the word in English expanded to refer to any similarly tall shelter or watchtower, and eventually to a bell-tower, with the first part of the word changing through association from ber- to bell- sometime in the fifteenth century.
Most often encountered today in reference to anything hugely successful or extravagant, the original blockbuster was in fact an enormous aerial bomb, so named as it was intended to be large enough to destroy an entire block of buildings. Developed by the Royal Air Force in the early 1940s, the first blockbuster, weighing 4,000 lb, was used during an attack on Emden in Germany in 1941. Although it was at the time the largest incendiary ever used by British forces, within just two years the RAF had begun using bombs three times this size, dropping more than 25,000 blockbusters weighing 12,000 lb in raids on Germany in 1943 alone. Popularized by the press, use of the word blockbuster soon caught on, with the first figurative reference to the entertainment industry dating from 1957.
Although today it is almost exclusively used as a verb, meaning to ‘barrage’ or ‘attack’, the word bombard was in fact originally a noun in English, used in a variety of different senses and contexts to refer to a type of leather bottle or jug used to carry liquor; a wooden medieval musical instrument similar to a bassoon; and an early type of cannon used to fire rocks or large stones. It is from this latter meaning, first recorded in the language in the early 1400s, that the verb bombard eventually derived. Indeed, the verb itself was originally used to mean ‘strike with a bombard’, or ‘assault’ or ‘destroy’ with shot.
Dating from the Old English period – and first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf in the late tenth century – brand was an ancient word for a sword, or else the blade or main body of a sword or similar weapon. In turn, the verb brandish, which dates from the mid-1300s in English, originally meant to ‘wave’ or ‘flourish a sword’, presumably as a sign of aggression or intent to attack, or else in preparation for its use. Over time, its use became more general and eventually it came to mean simply to ‘display’ or ‘flaunt’.
Although the phrase to break through dates as far back as the fifteenth century in English, the compound noun breakthrough is a surprisingly modern addition to the language, first attested as recently as 1918. In this sense, the word was originally used only in military contexts to refer to the forward advancement of troops through a ‘break’ in an enemy’s defensive line; the first recorded use of the word comes from a report of English and French troops making ‘an attempted break-through’ of the German front line in the final days of the First World War. Use of the word has since become much less specialized in English, with the first reference to a ‘technological breakthrough’ dating from the late 1950s.
Adopted into the language from French in the late nineteenth century, the word infrastructure was originally used only in military contexts in English to describe the various fixed buildings and installations, and all of their necessary foundations and subsystems, that are required for the running of a military operation, such as airfields and hangers, roads and bridges, training areas and mess halls. Use of the word soon became less specialized, however, and eventually came mean simply the basis or framework for any undertaking, and in particular the essential facilities and amenities required for the successful organization of a town or city.
Derived via French and Italian from the Arabic word for ‘storehouse’, makzan, the original meaning of the word magazine in English was, similarly, a ‘repository’ or ‘place for storing goods’, and in particular one used for the storage of ammunition, explosives, arms and other weaponry. Indeed, listed amongst the word’s numerous alternative meanings and uses are several other military senses including a ‘supply ship’ (1620s), ‘chamber of gun’ (1670s) and ‘container holding the bullets of a repeating firearm’ (1868). As a metaphorical ‘storehouse’ of information, magazine first came to refer to a periodical publication in the eighteenth century, with the earliest recorded example being the Gentlemen’s Magazine, first published in London in January 1731.
Although the adverb orderly, meaning ‘methodical’ or ‘well-organized’, dates from the fifteenth century in English, the noun orderly dates back to the mid-1700s and was originally used to describe either a non-medical attendant in a military hospital or a military ‘batman’ or so-called orderly corporal, a personal assistant or attendant working in the service of a higher-ranking officer. The modern medical sense of an orderly, namely someone charged with maintaining the cleanliness and smooth running of a hospital, developed from the first of these two military meanings in the early nineteenth century.
Meaning a ‘public common’ or ‘open area of land’, the word park dates from the Middle English period and originally entered the language from an equivalent French term, parc, in the early 1200s. The verb park, however, dates from the mid-1500s in English and first meant to ‘accommodate’ or ‘encamp troops’ on a park or similar open expanse of land. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century – and originally in the United States – that the term came to refer to the positioning of a vehicle in an allotted place, a sense first used in reference to wagons (1840s) and then trains (1860s), before the first reference to a car being parked was recorded in a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, Carry On, Jeeves, published in 1925.
In its original sense the word smokescreen described precisely that – a screen of smoke intentionally produced by military forces either to conceal themselves or to disguise or divert the enemy’s attention away from their operations. First recorded in reference to naval strategy 1915, the word soon gained a broader sense, denoting anything intended to distract or divert attention, in the 1920s. The verb smokescreen dates from 1950.