Hey y’all! It’s about two months past the Super Bowl of American Football, and boy am I missing football. So to help curb my appetite for it, here’s a post of the origins of the word football (in both “soccer” and “American football” senses) and a whole bunch of related words that I learned are apparently just borrowed from things with COMPLETELY different meanings most of the time!

Origins of “football” (yes, both kinds)
When did it first get used?
1300s
What does it mean?
It’s first use just meant generally “an outside game where you kick a ball” and we have all really made it our own!
The reference to the ball used is like 1350s-ish so not long after it was officially named
“Soccer” as a meaning wasn’t until 1863!
And the American football meaning is in 1869.
That’s all well and good, but what I’m really interested with this is all the related-to-football words that have been dragged in from totally different words and repurposed.
What did it come from?
This is pretty unexciting. It literally came from the words foot and ball, since those were the main components of the game. 😅
All the other football words
Footer:
Used to mean: pedestrian (1600s)
but now it means: a kick at a football (1781)