Etymologically
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bender

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 16:53. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • /ˈbɛndɚ/[1]
  • UK: /ˈbɛndə/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English bend + -er.[2][3][4][5][6] Dictionary.com notes that it already occurs in Middle English surnames, and dates it to 1200–1250.[7] The slang sense "drinking bout" is of uncertain motivation: Etymonline suggests that it comes from the Scottish sense "a hard drinker", or from the figurative use of the verb bend for "strain, brace, wind up";[3] Green's Dictionary of Slang suggests the image of a drunkard unsteady on his feet, or of bending a bow or the elbow.[8] The sense "sixpence" is explained by the ease with which the thin coin could be bent.[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

An instrument for bending, a pair of pliers: 1496, in the Treatise of Fishing with an Angle.[2][3] The Oxford Dictionary of English names pliers as an example of the early instruments.[9]

Semantic evolution

The agent sense, a person who bends, is recorded from 1590, in Spenser's Faerie Queene.[2] The OED also has the word for a device for drawing back a crossbow (1684) and for a flexor muscle (1615–1668), both obsolete;[2] Johnson (1755) gave "the person who bends" and "the instrument with which any thing is bent".[6] In Scots, a bender was a hard drinker, recorded from 1728 in Allan Ramsay to 1810.[2][3] The best-known sense, a drinking spree, is American slang first found in 1846 in a New Orleans collection, Pickings from the Picayune.[2][3][8] Other 19th-century slang senses were a sixpence, from 1789 according to Green's Dictionary of Slang and in the OED from 1836 (Dickens),[8][2] and a leg or knee, American, from 1849.[2][3] In south-western dialect, in Devon and Cornwall, a bender was anything very large or good of its kind, a "whopper";[10][2] in Kent bender and arrs meant a bow and arrows.[10] In the 20th century the word came to mean a shelter of bent branches covered with canvas, first recorded in 1934 and originally used by Gypsies.[2] From 1965 it was a derogatory slang term for a homosexual man.[2][4] In American underworld slang a bender was a thief (1931) and a stolen car (1938),[8] and in British prison slang a suspended sentence, from rhyming slang on suspender (1989).[8]

Timeline

  • 1496 – an instrument for bending, pliers.[2]
  • 1590 – a person who bends.[2]
  • 1728 – Scots, a hard drinker (obsolete by 1810).[2][3]
  • 1789 – slang, a sixpence.[8]
  • 1846 – American slang, a drinking spree.[2][3][8]
  • 1849 – American slang, a leg or knee.[2][3]
  • 1934 – a shelter of bent branches covered with canvas.[2]
  • 1965 – derogatory slang, a homosexual man.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (informal) A bout of heavy drinking; a spree: They went on a three-day bender after the wedding.[11][12][2][8]
  2. A person or thing that bends; a tool or machine for bending, such as a pipe bender.[5][11][2]
  3. (British) A shelter made of bent branches covered with canvas or tarpaulin.[2]
  4. (British slang, offensive) A homosexual man.[2][4]
  5. (slang) A sixpence.[2][4][8]

Word family

  • hellbender
  • fender-bender
  • gender bender

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  12. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster