"drop" in sports: lose (1884), defeat (1920)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 14, 2005, at 10:59 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> I noticed these dueling headlines from AP Sports the other day:
>
>         "Celtics Drop 76ers, Eye Atlantic Title"
>         "Spurs Drop Blazers, Clinch Southwest Title"
>
> "Drop" is often used by sports headline writers with one of two
> meanings:
> 'to lose (a game)' or 'to defeat (a team)', as above.  The 'lose'
> sense is
> in the OED with a first cite of 1961, but the 'defeat' sense is not yet
> included (thoug it seems related to OED def. 18, 'to fell with a
> blow').

the 'defeat' sense is just a causative of the 'lose' sense: TEAM1 drops
TEAM2 = TEAM1 causes TEAM2 to drop GAME.  a very natural development.
since ben gives 'lose' cites back to the 1880s, i'd expect the 'defeat'
sense to have developed not very long thereafter, as one of the huge
assortment of verbs meaning 'defeat' (CRUSH, BLANK, BLAST, DOWN,...).
there's always a market for verbs of this sort, especially if they're
vivid, and especially (for the sake of headline writers) if they're
short.

arnold