# Origin of the word 'Boxing'
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-boxing/82605
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 19, 2001, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-boxing/82605 "2001-09-19T16:11:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dec](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dec)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2001, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-boxing/82605/1 "2001-09-19T16:11:02Z")
Anybody know the origins of the name for the sport of boxing? My lame dictionary says ‘Origins obscure’.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2001, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-boxing/82605/2 "2001-09-20T04:55:36Z")
For what it’s worth.
My Partridge says: “boxing, noun, 1711, the sport of fighting with the fists. The late date is accounted for by the fact that boxing died out as a sport in ancient Rome and was not reintroduced until the late 1600’s, and not popularized until the early 1700’s by the English athlete James Figg.”
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### Author:  [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2001, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-boxing/82605/3 "2001-09-20T12:53:58Z")
I’m not sure how accurate my source is, and I read it a long time ago, but I seem to recall that back in the ages of tallships and stuff, they used to sit 2 people down on either ends of a box about four feet long. Then they would hit each other with their fists (no boxing gloves back then) until one of them falls off.
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### Author:  [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2001, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-boxing/82605/4 "2001-09-20T13:08:40Z")
[http://www.bartleby.com/61/13/B0431300.html](http://www.bartleby.com/61/13/B0431300.html) has “box” meaning a slap or blow with hand or fist, from Middle English.
[http://www.word-detective.com/020798.html](http://www.word-detective.com/020798.html) suggests it may come from the Old Germanic “boki”
I couldn’t find anything else of interest…