sabotage

Etymology

Recorded in English from 1907, and from 1903 as a French word used in English;^[1] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1910.^[2] It is borrowed from French sabotage,^[3][4] from French saboter (“to walk noisily; to bungle”),^[3][1] from French sabot (“wooden shoe”).^[3][1] The OED glosses saboter as “to make a noise with sabots, to perform or execute badly”, including “to destroy wilfully (tools, machinery, etc.)”.^[4]

The often-repeated story that the modern sense comes from strikers throwing shoes into machinery is not supported by the etymology; in French the word was used in a variety of “bungling” senses, such as playing a piece of music badly.^[1]

References

1. [1] [2] [3] [4] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
2. [1] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. [1] [2] [3] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
4. [1] [2] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press