bailout (aviation 1928, finance 1939)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Today in Word Routes I discuss the phrasal verb "bail out" and the
noun "bailout".

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1544/
follow-up to: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Wordmaster/2008-09-23-voa4.cfm

Antedatings for the noun:

* bailout = 'emergency descent by parachute from an airplane' (OED2
1955 s.v. "bale", v.2)
1928 _Lima (Ohio) News_ 12 Oct 11/1 A "bail out" is navy slang for
jumping out of a plane to make a parachute jump.
Full article posted here in May 2005:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505A&L=ads-l&P=19839

* bailout = 'rescue from financial distress' (not yet in OED)
1939 _Time_ 9 Oct. (heading) $40,000,000 Bail-Out.
[referring to the Commodity Credit Corporation's plan to assist
American tobacco farmers]
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762697,00.html

Jesse Sheidlower also noted a 1940 example of the financial sense in
Safire's April 6, 2008 column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06wwln-safire-t.html


--Ben Zimmer

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