When and where is first occurrence of word zap?
The Online Etymology Dictionary mentions the comic strip Buck Rogers, but without any precise date or quotation.
-
"Zap" was used as a character name by Samuel Taylor Coleridge back in the early 1800s. No telling where that came from. But I've always assumed that the sci-fi term came from the sound of an electric spark.– Hot LicksCommented Jul 13, 2020 at 21:25
-
thank you very much– Jacques NotaiseCommented Jul 15, 2020 at 0:37
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
The term earliest appearance appears to be from 1929 as a noun. The comic strips “Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century" were published from 1929 to 1967 and, apparently, used the term quite often.
Zap: (noun)
(orig. US) an excl. used to describe the force of a sudden impact:
1929 P.F. Nowlan in Wash. Post 7 May 16/3: Ahead of me was one of those golden dragon Mongols, with a deadly disintegrator ray... Br-r-rr-r-z-zzz-zap.
Zap: (verb)
(orig. US milit.) to kill, to defeat.
1942 [US] Berrey & Van den Bark - The American Thesaurus of SlAng.
(GDoS)
Here is a strip from 1933 where the term zap as a verb is used:
From (rolandanderson.se)
answered Jul 13, 2020 at 21:18
