Werd: Bailout - Part Five

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Editorials, Taxes, US Economy

The history of the word “bailout” is spotty at best.  My handy not-quite-the-real-OED has no etymological definition.  Merriam-Webster, who chose “bailout” as the word of 2008, gives a lame definition with a general reference to the year 1951:

Date: 1951
: a rescue from financial distress

So I went to the vast Google books resources and noticed that bailout in 1951 referred to pilots, bailing out of their cockpits [see also, Popular Mechanics in 1947 and 1956].

But what does that have to do with finance?

Click to continue reading Werd: Bailout - Part Five

Read More | 2008 Word of the Year

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