Question of the Day - 03 June 2025

There are, in fact, many theories for the origin of the term "86," none of which has been or can be proven definitively.

Most versions of the 86 etymology are related to restaurants and bars and our gut feeling is that this general area is the most likely source, but we'll list all the explanations we've come across, in an approximate reverse order of likelihood.

One explanation is that the term derives from British merchant shipping, in which the standard crew size was 85. Hence, the 86th man was left behind. Probably not.
 
Another dubious theory is that the soup-kitchen cauldrons of the Great Depression held enough for 85 cups of soup, meaning the 86th unfortunate in line was out of luck.
 
In Subchapter X, the "Punitive Articles" of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that deals with offenses under the code, Article 86 is the one covering absence without leave. But again, this meaning doesn't really fit the subsequent contexts to which the term is applied.
 
One writer we came across explained that in culinary school, he was told that it was a reference for trash barges, which were required to reach 86 fathoms before dumping their load.
 
Apparently, in the 1930s, the term was applied to the streetcar line that operated on First Avenue in New York City (where several of the possible explanations have their origins). The line ran from 14th to 86th streets, where the motorman shouted, "Eighty-six! End of the line! All out!"
 
The voluminous and authoritative Oxford English Dictionary suggests the term may have been rhyming slang for "nix" (an 18th-century English word originating from the German nichts, "nothing.") If true, the rhyming slang was created much later in the U.S. However, that doesn't quite gel, since rhyming slang was generally the preserve of the Cockney inhabitants of London's East End. 
 
Another theory is that six feet deep by eight feet long were the common dimensions for a grave plot, hence being "86'd" meant being taken permanently out of the equation, particularly in the military. And that might account for the belief about the Mob burying bodies of casino undesirables out in the desert.
 
Chumley’s, a Prohibition-era speakeasy in New York’s Greenwich Village, claimed the term 86 as its own. Located at 86 Bedford Street, the story goes that when a raid was imminent, a collaborating cop tipped off the management to hide the booze and get rid of the clientele via a secret exit. Other sources, however, suggest that the chronology of this story may not work, since Chumley’s didn’t open until 1927 and the term was apparently in use prior to that. Still, the coincidence may well have contributed to the term’s growing popularity.
 
Another popular, although again utterly unsubstantiated, explanation is that in the saloons of the Wild West era, if a man was getting drunk and disorderly, the bar watered down his drink from the regular 100 proof served to men to the weaker 86 proof served to women. This insult to his masculinity was apparently deemed sufficient to encourage the inebriated patron to leave.
 
In bar culture, the term is attributed to Article 86 of the New York State Liquor Code, which specifically outlines the circumstances in which a patron should be refused alcohol and/or removed from the premises.
 
Perhaps the most credible version of the restaurant theory comes from Delmonico’s, located in the financial district of New York City and one of the country’s oldest restaurants (1837). Item number 86 on an early menu was a rib eye steak that, being popular, regularly sold out. From here the term entered the general catering lexicon to mean an item that had sold out or was out of stock, and this remains our favorite for the most likely original use of the term.