Online Etymology Dictionary

gunsel: 1914, Amer. Eng., from hobo slang, "a catamite;" specifically "a young male kept as a sexual companion, esp. by an older tramp," from Yiddish genzel, from Ger. Gänslein "gosling, young goose." The secondary, non-sexual meaning "young hoodlum" seems to be entirely traceable to Dashiell Hammett, who snuck it into "The Maltese Falcon" (1939) while warring with his editor over the book's racy language.
" 'Another thing,' Spade repeated, glaring at the boy: 'Keep that gunsel away from me while you're making up your mind. I'll kill him.' "
The context implies some connection with gun and a sense of "gunman," and evidently the editor bought it. The word was retained in the script of the 1941 movie made from the book, so evidently the Motion Picture Production Code censors didn't know it either.
"The relationship between Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet) and his young hit-man companion, Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook, Jr.), is made fairly clear in the movie, but the overt mention of sexual perversion would have been deleted if the censors hadn't made the same mistaken assumption as Hammett's editor." [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1989, p.184]
edition: 1551, "act of publishing," from L. editionem (nom. editio) "a bringing forth, producing," from stem of edere "bring forth, produce," from ex- "out" + -dere, comb. form of dare "to give" (see date (1)). Meaning "form of a literary work" is from 1570. "It is awkward to speak of, e.g. 'The second edition of Campbell's edition of Plato's "Theætetus"'; but existing usage affords no satisfactory substitute for this inconvenient mode of expression" [OED]. Edit is 1791, probably as a back-formation of editor (1649), which, from its original meaning "publisher" had evolved by 1712 a sense of "person who prepares written matter for publication;" specific sense in newspapers is from 1803. Editorial "newspaper article by an editor" is Amer.Eng. 1830. Hence, editorialize (1856), "introduce opinions into factual accounts."
photoshop (v.): "to edit an image using a computer program," 1992, originally in ref. to Photoshop, a bitmap graphics editor trademarked and published by Adobe, released in 1990.
bowdlerize: 1836, from Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), English editor who in 1818 published a notorious expurgated Shakespeare, "in which those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family."
gonzo: 1971, Amer.Eng., in Hunter S. Thompson's phrase gonzo journalism, from It. gonzo "simpleton, blockhead." Thompson in 1972 said he got it from editor Bill Cardosa, and explained it as "some Boston word for weird, bizarre."
pizazz: 1937, probably originally college or show-biz slang.
"Pizazz, to quote the editor of the Harvard Lampoon, is an indefinable dynamic quality, the je ne sais quoi of function; as for instance, adding Scotch puts pizazz into a drink. Certain clothes have it, too." ["Harper's Bazaar," March 1937]
gerrymander: 1812, Amer.Eng., from Elbridge Gerry + (sala)mander. Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, was lampooned when his party redistricted the state in a blatant bid to preserve an Antifederalist majority. One Essex County district resembled a salamander, and a newspaper editor dubbed it Gerrymander.
aphetic: 1880, from aphesis, coined by OED editor Sir James A.H. Murray (1837-1915) for "gradual and unintentional loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word" (as squire from esquire), from Gk. aphienai "to let go, to send forth," from apo- "from" + hienai "to send."
Balkanize: 1920, first used in reference to the Baltic states, on the model of what had happened in the Balkans; said to have been coined by Eng. editor James Louis Garvin (1868-1947), but A.J. Toynbee (1922) credited it to "German Socialists" describing the results of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Either way, the reference is to the political situation in the Balkans c.1878-1913, when the European section of the Ottoman Empire split up into small, warring nations. Balkanized and Balkanization both also are from 1920.
kike: derogatory slang for "Jew," 1904, perhaps originating among Ger.-American Jews in reference to newcomers from Eastern Europe, whose names ended in -ki or -ky. Philip Cowen, first editor of "The American Hebrew," suggests a source in Yiddish kikel "circle." According to him, Jewish immigrants, ignorant of writing with the Latin alphabet, signed their entry forms with a circle, eschewing the "X" as a sign of Christianity. Ellis Island immigration inspectors began calling such people kikels, and the term shortened as it passed into general use.
slot (1): c.1300, "hollow at the base of the throat above the breastbone," from O.Fr. esclot, of uncertain origin. Sense of "narrow opening into which something else can be fitted" is first recorded 1523. Meaning "middle of the (semi-circular) copy desk at a newspaper," the spot occupied by the chief sub-editor, is recorded from 1917. The sense of "opening in a machine for a coin to be inserted" is from 1888 (slot machine first attested 1891). The sense of "position in a list" is first recorded 1942; verb sense of "designate, appoint" is from 1960s. Slot car first attested 1966.
at: O.E. æt, common P.Gmc. (cf. O.N., Goth. at, O.Fris. et, O.H.G. az), from PIE *ad- "to, near, at" (cf. L. ad "to, toward" Skt. adhi "near"). Lost in Ger. and Du., which use their equivalent of to; in Scand., however, to has been lost and at fills its place. At-home (n.) "reception of visitors" is from 1745; baseball at-bat "player's turn at the plate" is from 1941. The colloquial use of at after where ("where it's at") is attested from 1859. In choosing between at church, in church, etc. at is properly distinguished from in or on by involving some practical connection; a worshipper is at church; a tourist is in the church. At last is recorded from 1297; adv. phrase at least was in use by 1775. At in M.E. was used freely with prepositions (e.g. at after, which is in Shakespeare), but this has faded with the exception of at about, which was used in modern times by Trollope, Virginia Woolfe, D.H. Lawrence, and Evelyn Waugh, but nonetheless is regarded as a sign of incompetent writing by my copy editor bosses.
ax: O.E. æces (Northumbrian acas), later æx, from P.Gmc. *akusjo (cf. O.S. accus, O.N. ex, O.Fris. axe, Ger. Axt, Goth. aqizi), from PIE *agw(e)si- (cf. Gk. axine, L. ascia). Meaning "musical instrument" is 1955, originally jazz slang for the saxophone; rock slang for "guitar" dates to 1967. The ax in fig. sense of cutting of anything (expenses, workers, etc.), especially as a cost-saving measure, is from 1922, probably from the notion of the headman's literal axe (itself attested from c.1450). To have an axe to grind is from an 1815 essay by U.S. newspaper editor Charles Miner (1780–1865) in which a man flatters a boy and gets him to do the chore of axe-grinding for him, then leaves without offering thanks or recompense. Misattributed to Benjamin Franklin in Weekley, OED print edition, and many other sources.
"The spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which became prevalent during the 19th century; but it is now disused in Britain." [OED]
fundamental: c.1443, "primary, original, pertaining to a foundation," modeled on L.L. fundamentalis "of the foundation," from L. fundamentum "foundation" (see fundament). Religious senses of fundamentalist (1920) and fundamentalism (1923) began in Amer.Eng. with a movement among Protestants c.1920-25 based on scriptural inerrancy, etc., and associated with William Jennings Bryan, among others. Fundamentalist first used in print by Curtis Lee Laws, editor of "The Watchman Examiner," a Baptist newspaper.
" 'Fundamentalism' ... appears to have been used first in connexion with the (American) Northern Baptist Convention of 1920 to describe the more conservative delegates who desired 'to restate, reaffirm, and reemphasize the fundamentals of our New Testament faith.' ... Now 'Fundamentalism' ... appears to describe the bigoted rejection of all Biblical criticism, a mechanical view of inspiration and an excessively literalist interpretation of scripture." ["London Times," Aug. 25, 1955]
Garry Wills, in "Under God" (1990) traces the terms and the movement to the Presbyterian General Assembly of 1910, which drew up a list of five defining qualities of "true believers" which other evangelicals published in a mass-circulation series of books called "The Fundamentals." A World's Christian Fundamentals Association was founded in 1918. Applied to other religions, especially Islam, since 1957.
Whig: British political party, 1657, in part perhaps a disparaging use of whigg "a country bumpkin" (c.1645); but mainly a shortened form of Whiggamore (1649) "one of the adherents of the Presbyterian cause in western Scotland who marched on Edinburgh in 1648 to oppose Charles I." Perhaps originally "a horse drover," from dialectal verb whig "to urge forward" + mare. The name was first used 1689 in reference to members of the British political party that opposed the Tories. American Revolution sense of "colonist who opposes Crown policies" is from 1768. Later it was applied to opponents of Andrew Jackson (as early as 1825), and taken as the name of a political party (1834) that merged into the Republican Party in 1854-56.
"... in the spring of 1834 Jackson's opponents adopted the name Whig, traditional term for critics of executive usurpations. James Watson Webb, editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer, encouraged use of the name. [Henry] Clay gave it national currency in a speech on April 14, 1834, likening "the whigs of the present day" to those who had resisted George III, and by summer it was official." [Daniel Walker Howe, "What Hath God Wrought," 2007, p.390]
Whig historian is recorded from 1924. Whig history is "the tendency in many historians ... to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present." [Herbert Butterfield, "The Whig Interpretation of History," 1931]