The angler angle

November 7th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

The dictionary’s second member of the “gig” gang is a fishing term. It can be “a fish spear” or “a fish line with hooks designed to catch fish by jabbing into their bodies.”

It also can be a verb for such activities.

It’s a contraction of the earlier terms “fishgig” and “fizgig,” which have a fairly long lineage: the Spanish “fisga,” a type of harpoon, from “fisgar”; the Late Latin “fixicare,” the Latin “fixare,” all the way back to the Latin “fixus,” the past participle of “figere” — “to fasten, attach.”

Interestingly, “jig,” which is where this all started (remember?), also can be a fishing term. A jig is “any of various fishing lured that are jiggled up and down in the water.”

So, fish can be caught with a gig or a jig.

Our final “gig” is another slang version, this time for “an official record or report of a minor delinquency, as in a military school” or “punishment for such a delinquency.”

A solid synonym is “demerit.”

Entry Filed under: word origins