Name Origin
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "shot glass" first appeared in print in The New York Times during the 1940s, but in fact several examples exist from the 1930s. However, although it was used by some, the term apparently did not come into common usage until much later.
Many references from the 1800s describe giving a jigger of whiskey or rum to workers who were digging canals. Most shot glasses are found in the United States, but shot glasses from before the 1940s are very rare.
Before Prohibition in the U.S. in the early to mid 1900s, thin-sided whiskey glasses were common. After Prohibition, these were replaced by shot glasses with a thick base and thick sides.
Because the word shot also means "dose" or "small amount", it may simply be that these small glasses are called shot glasses because they hold small amounts. However, there are a range of more-complex stories about the origin of the style of glass, and its name. Few of them stand up to much scrutiny – either they place the origin decades before the term appeared in print, or they describe an item that had nothing to do with drinking liquor:
Read more about this topic: Shot Glass
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)