August 21, 1996

lame duck

Where does the term "lame duck" come from?

Ultimately, the origin comes from the idea that a lame duck is unable to move or accomplish anything at all; all the senses, viewed very broadly, mean 'ineffectual'.

The earliest sense, which first appears in the eighteenth century in England, is 'a person bankrupted by financial or stock speculation; a person not able to meet his or her debts'. Aside from the image of a lame duck as something that's floundering about, there are several parallels with animals to consider. We have the well-known bulls and bears of the stock market. Probably more relevant is dove, a British slang term meaning 'sucker', and rook, which means 'a swindler' or 'to swindle', after a European type of crow. These terms must have helped to give rise to the phrase "lame duck."

The broader sense, 'any person or thing that is incapacitated or ineffectual' turns up--first in England, but the sense is found in America too--by the early nineteenth century. Finally we get to the usual sense in America: 'an elected official or legislative body whose term of office is nearing an end, especially a legislator still in office after losing a bid for re-election'. It is difficult to tell exactly when this specific sense arose. There is a quotation from 1863 that may attest this sense, but it is not clear; the first clear example shows up in 1910, after which point the word is well documented.

The political sense is the most common sense in America; in Britain the financial sense is dominant.