Donate SIGN UP

heat

Avatar Image
parkinson | 01:45 Sat 16th Aug 2008 | Phrases & Sayings
4 Answers
does anybody know where the word heat came from as applied to the selection race in a sporting event
Gravatar

Answers

1 to 4 of 4rss feed

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by parkinson. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
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.
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"...
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
Question Author
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

1 to 4 of 4rss feed

Do you know the answer?

heat

Answer Question >>