also juke-box, "machine that automatically plays selected recorded music when a coin is inserted," 1939, earlier jook organ (1937), from jook joint "roadhouse, brothel" (1935), African-American vernacular, from juke, joog "wicked, disorderly," a word in Gullah (the creolized English of the coastlands of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida). This is probably from an African source, such as Wolof and Bambara dzug "unsavory." The adjective is said to have originated in central Florida (see "A Note on Juke," Florida Review, vol. vii, no. 3, spring 1938). The spelling with a -u- might represent a deliberate attempt to put distance between the word and its origins.
For a long time the commercial juke trade resisted the name juke box and even tried to raise a big publicity fund to wage a national campaign against it, but "juke box" turned out to be the biggest advertising term that could ever have been invented for the commercial phonograph and spread to the ends of the world during the war as American soldiers went abroad but remembered the juke boxes back home. ["Billboard," Sept. 15, 1945]
1580s, from Danish Eskimo or French Esquimaux (plural), both probably from an Algonquian word, such as Abenaki askimo (plural askimoak), Ojibwa ashkimeq, traditionally said to mean literally "eaters of raw meat," from Proto-Algonquian *ask- "raw" + *-imo "eat." Research from 1980s in linguistics of the region suggests this derivation, though widely credited there, might be inaccurate or incomplete, and the word might mean "snowshoe-netter," but there are phonological difficulties with this. See also Innuit.
Of language, from 1819. As an adjective by 1744. Eskimo pie "chocolate-coated ice cream bar" was introduced in 1922 and was at first a craze that drove up the price of cocoa beans on the New York market 50 percent in three months [F.L. Allen, "Only Yesterday," 1931].
It is said that the reason the "Eskimo Pie" campaign was not successful in Spanish-speaking countries is because in Spanish the word "pie" means "foot." South Americans do not care to eat Eskimos' feet. ["Pitfalls of Foreign Advertising," Business, December 1922]
of unknown origin; attested in London criminal slang as adjective (1775, "counterfeit"), verb (1812, "to rob"), and noun (1851, "a swindle;" of persons 1888, "a swindler"), but probably older. A likely source is feague "to spruce up by artificial means," from German fegen "polish, sweep," also "to clear out, plunder" in colloquial use. "Much of our early thieves' slang is Ger. or Du., and dates from the Thirty Years' War" [Weekley]. Or it may be from Latin facere "to do." Century Dictionary notes that "thieves' slang is shifting and has no history."
The nautical word meaning "one of the windings of a cable or hawser in a coil" probably is unrelated, from Swedish veck "a fold." As a verb, "to feign, simulate" from 1941. To fake it is from 1915, jazz slang; to fake (someone) out is from 1940s, originally in sports. Related: Faked; fakes; faking.
The jazz musician's fake book is attested from 1951. Fake news "journalism that is deliberately misleading" is attested from 1894; popularized in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
"one who refuses obedience to a superior or controlling power or principle; one who resists an established government; person who renounces and makes war on his country for political motives," mid-14c., originally in reference to rebellion against God, from rebel (adj.).
By mid-15c. in the general sense of "obstinate or refractory person." The meaning "supporter of the American cause in the War of Independence" is by May 1775; sense of "supporter of the Southern cause in the American Civil War" is attested from April 15, 1861.
The Civil War's rebel yell is attested from 1862, but the thing itself is older and was said to have been picked up by (then) southwestern men in their periodic wars against the Indians.
The Southern troops, when charging or to express their delight, always yell in a manner peculiar to themselves. The Yankee cheer is more like ours; but the Confederate officers declare that the rebel yell has a particular merit, and always produces a salutary and useful effect upon their adversaries. A corps is sometimes spoken of as a 'good yelling regiment.' [A.J.L. Fremantle, "The Battle of Gettysburg and the Campaign in Pennsylvania," in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Sept. 1863]
Rebel without a cause is from the title of the 1955 Warner Bros. film, a title said to have been adopted from psychiatrist Robert M. Linder's 1944 classic "Rebel Without a Cause," which follows the successful analysis and hypnosis of a criminal psychopath but otherwise has nothing to do with the movie.
