Origin
The use of the phrase as a noun has been part of the Oxford English Dictionary since 1980 and as a verb since 1981. The gesture takes its name from the "five" fingers and the raising of the hand "high". This is opposed to the "low" five which has been a part of the African-American culture since at least World War II. It's probably impossible to know exactly when the low first transitioned to a high, but there are many theories about its inception. Magic Johnson once suggested that he invented the high five at Michigan State. Others have suggested it originated in the women's volleyball circuit of the 1960s.
Read more about this topic: High Five
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)