I'm interested in the origin of the term smooth operator. Does anyone know where it came from? What kind of operation?
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The word operator has had several slang meanings over time, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. A brief list of the time and definition of operator is:
The phrase smooth operator starts to appear in the late 1890s. For example, in "The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason", it says: Here, a smooth operator is someone who is "smooth" at running a business or set of financial operations (the senses from the earlier 1800s). This is not the only application of smooth operator. In the 1980s, the OED notes the following usage:
The "operation" has changed over time. In the 1700 and 1800s, the "operation" was financial--it referred to either theft operations, speculating on stocks (operate as a verb meant "To deal or speculate in stocks or shares; to buy and sell commodities as a broker"), or business operations. Then, in the 1900s, the "operations" referred to the "business" of playing at courtship and seducing women. Thus, now a smooth operator can refer to the "business" of financial operations or seduction operations, with smooth modifying operator in a primarily (and possibly solely) negative way. |
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The OED’s earliest citation for those actual words is dated 1980. However, a 1944 citation has 'Big-time operator, a slick chick's smooth fellow', itself a quotation from a slang dictionary of the time. Chambers Slang Dictionary defines ‘operator’ alone as ‘a successful seducer of women’ and dates it to the 1940s. |
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