"djinn up"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yes.

JL

"Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mark A. Mandel"
Subject: Re: "djinn up"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Somewhere I picked up the idea that the "gin" in "gin up" came from
"engine".

And on consulting OED Online, I see that "engine" has several obsolete
verbal uses, beginning with this one:

1. trans. To contrive, plan, either in a material or an immaterial sense.
Also absol. with inf. of purpose. to engine together: to frame or fit
together by art. Obs.


Now, doesn't that look like a plausible origin?

-- Mark
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]


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