- graffiti
- 1851, for ancient wall inscriptions found in the ruins of Pompeii, from It. graffiti, pl. of graffito "a scribbling," a dim. formation from graffio "a scratch or scribble," from graffiare "to scribble." Sense extended 1877 to recently made crude drawings and scribbling.
- chad (1)
- also Mr. Chad graffiti drawing of a head peering over a fence or wall, with the caption, "Wot, no ______?" (the U.S. version usually had "Kilroy was here"), protesting shortages and rationing, 1945, British, of unknown origin.
- tag (1)
- "small hanging piece," 1402, perhaps from a Scand. source (cf. Norw. tagg "point, prong," Swed. tagg "prickle, thorn") cognate with tack (1). Meaning "label" is first recorded 1835; sense of "automobile license plate" is recorded from 1935, originally underworld slang. Meaning "an epithet, popular designation" is recorded from 1961, hence slang verb meaning "to write graffiti in public places" (1990). The verb meaning "to furnish with a tag" is from 1436. To tag along is first recorded 1900.
- ampersand
- 1837, contraction of and per se and, meaning "(the character) '&' by itself is 'and' " (a hybrid phrase, partly in Latin, partly in English). The symbol is based on the L. word et "and," and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs (ligatures), attested in Pompeiian graffiti, but not (as sometimes stated) from the Tironian Notes, which was a different form of shorthand, probably invented by Cicero's companion Marcus Tullius Tiro, which used a different symbol, something like a reversed capital gamma, to indicate et. This Tironian symbol was maintained by some medieval scribes, including Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, who sprinkled their works with a symbol like a numeral 7 to indicate the word and. In old schoolbooks the ampersand was printed at the end of the alphabet and thus by 1880s had acquired a slang sense of "posterior, rear end, hindquarters."