What is the history of the oh-so-common English phrase, “come on!”?

Question

I haven’t any idea of whence the phrase come on could have originated. There seems to be little purely denotative sense that can be made of the phrase. What were the circumstances under which it was first coined, and what is the back-story to this interesting phrase (which I’m sure has some involved history)?

Answer 1

This appears to be merely the latest in a long chain of expressions with both come and go. OED 1 finds, s.v. Come,

"33.b. As a call or appeal to a person to bethink himself, implying impatience, remonstrance, or, more usually, mild protest or deprecation on the speaker's part. Often emphasized by repetition, or by the addition of such words as now, then, but."

—to which we may in the 20th century add on. The earliest citation is dated 1340. Go, go up, go on have similar uses.

Answer 2

My reading is that when you say "come on" you are urging someone or something to finish acting absurdly and start being sensible. So "come on!" in the sense of an exclamation is from the literal sense of "come on" as "move forward!".