heat

[parkinson]

does anybody know where the word heat came from as applied to the selection race in a sporting event

[jno]

a heat was an old term for giving a horse some exercise before a race - a 'heat' would be a 'warm-up', I suppose. It looks as though it came to be applied to races between humans before the main race. It's related to dead-heat, but I'm not sure what 'dead' means in that phrase. Quizmonster can probably give you a better explanation if he's around in the morning.

[Clanad]

Our inveterate, lexically entertaining Q may be on a brief but culinarily rewarding sojuourn al la Francaise... Q travels, from time to time, to France to stuff himself silly with locally unique cuisine and wine... and, perhaps rechauffe.. waiting for a report on his latest adventure. In the mean time, using Q's favorite resouce; O.E.D., I find the following to support jno's offering:

"
Dead...Used from 16c. in adj. sense of "utter, absolute, quite." Dead heat is from 1796..." Therefore an interpolation would mean a race of any kind resulitng in a neck and neck or photo finish, an "utter, absolute, tie"...

[Quizmonster]

What more can I say...or even needs to be said? You have both provided superb answers.

C, This weekend, I am doing more or less what you said but not where you said it. This is the occasion of the annual reunion - this time in my home town - of some old military colleagues and myself. Consequently, rather than the finest of vins rouges, we are sampling a broad range of single malts...Scotland's finest. We've scarcely drawn a sober breath in the past 48 hours and there are 48 more to go! Cheers

[parkinson]

thank you people, it came up in discussion with all the Olympian coverage and unusually I didn't know and couldn't work it out in an etymological way, I was aware of the dead in dead-heat and knew its derivation, thanks again, very helpful