Etymologically
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fin

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Pronunciation

fin1 organ of a fish

Etymology

The fish's fin is inherited from Middle English finne, inherited from Old English finn,[2][3][4][5] from Proto-Germanic *finnō,[6][4][7] cognate with Middle Low German vinne, Middle Dutch vinne (modern vin), Middle High German vinne (“nail”), Swedish fena and Norwegian finne;[4][2][8] German Finne is probably borrowed from Low German.[9][3] The further origin is unclear.[10] Many dictionaries take it to be related to, or the same word as, Latin pinna (“feather, wing; fin”), the source of pin, pinion and pinnacle;[9][8][11][10][12][13] Klein and Merriam-Webster compare instead spīna (“thorn, spine”), which Etymonline and Ayto think less likely.[3][2][6][10] Barnhart derives it from Proto-Indo-European *pi-n-, from the root *(s)phēi- (Pokorny 981),[4] and Köbler likewise sets it under Pokorny's root for a point or tip.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The organ by which a fish swims and steers: about 1000, in Ælfric's version of Leviticus, which forbids the eating of any fish except those that habbaþ finnas and scilla, have fins and scales.[9][4][5]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word was used of fish and also of whales and similar animals.[9] The Paston letters have the figurative put out one's fins, apparently to bestir oneself, in about 1461,[9] and by 1549 a fin could stand for a fish itself;[9] in Leicestershire dialect fin still meant a fish, and in Lancashire a strip of whalebone.[14] The likeness of shape gave a run of transferred senses: the eyelid (1604–1623), a lobe of the liver or lungs (1615), the baleen of a whale (1634) and a sharp projection on a plough's share or coulter (1652).[9][2] Johnson (1755) defined the fin as "the wing of a fish".[15] From 1785, when Grose recorded it as a sailors' phrase, fin was a joking word for the hand or arm.[9][16] The 19th and 20th centuries added technical senses: a stabilizing surface, first on a boat (1835) and later on aircraft and rockets, a projecting rib in machinery (1874), and rubber flippers for swimmers (1960).[9][17] The verb, first in the carver's phrase for cutting up a chub (1508), later came to mean to swim like a fish (before 1861), and since 1933 to show the fins above the water.[9][2]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – the organ of a fish, in Ælfric.[9][4]
  • c. 1461 – figurative put out one's fins.[9]
  • 1508 – verb, to cut up a chub.[9]
  • 1549 – a fish.[9]
  • 1652 – a projection on a plough's share or coulter.[9]
  • 1785 – jocular, the hand or arm.[9][16]
  • 1835 – a stabilizing surface, later on aircraft and rockets.[9]
  • before 1861 – verb, to swim.[9]
  • 1933 – verb, of a fish, to show its fins above the water.[2]
  • 1960 – flippers for underwater swimming.[9]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A thin, flat appendage on the body of a fish or other aquatic animal, used for swimming, steering and balance.
  2. A part that looks or works like a fish's fin, such as a vertical stabilizing surface on an aircraft or rocket, or a projecting rib that helps a radiator give off heat.
  3. A flipper worn on the foot for swimming underwater: He forgot his mask and fins.
  4. (slang) The hand or arm.

Verb

  1. Of a fish, to show the fins above the water, or to swim by moving the fins.
  2. To swim underwater using fins.

Word family

  • finlike
  • finned
  • finless
  • finny
  • blackfin
  • bowfin
  • finback
  • finfish

fin2 five-dollar bill

Etymology

The slang word for a five-pound note, and later a five-dollar bill, is a shortening of finnip, also finnif and finif,[9][18][16][19] which is borrowed from Yiddish פֿינף (finf, “five”),[2][20][6][16] from Middle High German vumf, vimf, from Old High German funf, finf,[2][20] cognate with five, from Proto-Indo-European *penkwe- (“five”).[6][20] The Shorter Oxford calls the Yiddish origin uncertain, and the OED says the word is said to represent a Yiddish pronunciation of German fünf.[18][9] Etymonline stresses that it has nothing to do with the fish's fin.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A five-pound note: finnip from 1839, in W. A. Miles's report on poverty and crime,[9][16][6] and fin from 1868, in the Temple Bar magazine, explained there as "five-pound notes, or flash notes".[9][16][6]

Semantic evolution

The word passed from British underworld slang to Australia, where a fin was a bet of five pounds by 1914,[16] and to the United States, where it came to mean a five-dollar bill and sometimes a one-dollar bill.[16][9] Green's Dictionary of Slang has the American form pfinif for a five-dollar bill in 1909,[16] Merriam-Webster dates fin in that sense to 1916,[2] and Etymonline records it as American underworld slang from 1925.[6]

Timeline

  • 1839 – finnip, a five-pound note.[9][16]
  • 1868 – fin, a five-pound note.[9][16]
  • 1909 – American pfinif, a five-dollar bill.[16]
  • 1916 – fin, a five-dollar bill.[2]
  • 1925 – American underworld slang (Etymonline).[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (slang, chiefly US) A five-dollar bill: Can you lend me a fin until Friday?
  2. (slang, British) A five-pound note.

Usage notes

In Scots, fin also meant a mood or a state of eager desire, chiefly in the phrase to be in a fin.[14] In 19th-century Anglo-Indian slang fin was a word for a fellow, recorded by Richard Burton in 1851.[16]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ 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)
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  20. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt