# What Is The Meaning Of 86?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 22, 2011, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553 "2011-01-22T10:09:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/1 "2011-01-22T10:09:08Z")
When I was in the USA in the early 1980s, many people used a slang expression which they could not explain. Its was “86” to indicate something was gone, none left, defunct, finished. For example, the Philadelphia Steak is 86ed meaning off the menu (I was a waiter for a short time).
Any ideas? Anyone use it these days?
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/2 "2011-01-22T10:14:18Z")
I love [this article](http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/180827/the_origin_and_usage_of_the_term_86_pg2.html?cat=37). No attempt to be definitive but heaps of wild speculation about the origin.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/3 "2011-01-22T10:22:18Z")
I like the idea of it being a Military term for AWOL, i.e. _UCMJ Sub Chapter X Article 86_
[Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TFBHYQpDAE) where I first heard the term.
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### Author:  [@Shig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shig)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/4 "2011-01-22T10:23:23Z")
As for the definition, I know it to mean “banned.” Usually something along the lines of “that dumbass got wasted and made a fool of himself and got 86’ed from the bar” is how I’ve heard it. Never heard it used in reference to something other than a person no longer being welcome. If someone were to use it when talking about a menu item, I would understand what they meant, would just be the first time I’d heard it used that way. As for origin, I have no clue.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/5 "2011-01-22T10:26:06Z")
I won’t even speculate as to where the term came from, but the place I’ve aways heard it used most often is in restaurants.
In a diner, if a patron says, “I’ll have the cheeseburger, but without onions,” the waitress will jot down “86 onions” or call out to the cook “One cheeseburger, 86 the onions.”
“86” is often used as a verb, meaning “cancel that” or “get rid of that.”
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### Author:  [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/6 "2011-01-22T10:30:42Z")
Wow team, that was quick! I’m grateful and impressed - thankyou. Perhaps it is a restaurant term because we used it normally and often in Denver. I thought it was a gridiron (American football) term but nobody working with me knew. Appears to be much older than expected.
Another mystery solved. 😃
Now…zip guns…??😕
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### Author:  [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/7 "2011-01-22T11:01:18Z")
[Cecil’s take on it.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/255/where-does-the-term-86-come-from)
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### Author:  [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/8 "2011-01-22T11:03:33Z")
The irony is that RU486 makes an actual question.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/9 "2011-01-22T11:13:00Z")
Don’t forget Maxwell Smart was Agent 86.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/10 "2011-01-22T12:31:26Z")
Numerical slang from hash houses/soda fountains. Earliest cite we have is from 1933, found by [Barry Popik](http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/86_not_from_chumleys_or_empire_state_building/).
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/11 "2011-01-22T18:49:36Z")
_She never did make her debut
He never made it to class
Shes eighty-sixed from the chart room
Hes twenty nine and pushin thirty real fast_
Jimmy Buffet, _Cliches_
As been said, it means that something is unavailable; and by extension that someone or something is banned or excluded.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/12 "2011-01-22T21:30:44Z")
Whole mess of information on [this Snopes page](http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/86.asp). Earliest mention appears to agree with **samclem** ’s cite above.
> [@](#):
>
> The most widely accepted theory of the term’s origin states it derives from a code supposedly used in some restaurants in the 1930s, wherein 86 was a shortform among restaurant workers for ‘We’re all out of it.’ Snippets of said code were published in newsman Walter Winchell’s column in 1933, where it was presented as part of a “glossary of soda-fountain lingo.”
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### Author:  [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/13 "2011-01-23T01:12:58Z")
I like Cecil’s rhyming slang explanation. But if there’s too much rhyming slang and you end up with sentences like: “It nearly knocked me off me plates: he was wearing a syrup! So I got straight on the dog to me trouble, and said I couldn’t believe me minces…”
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### Author:  [@eightysix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eightysix)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-of-86/568553/14 "2011-01-23T05:23:34Z")
> [@Ken001](#):
>
> Now…zip guns…??😕
Zip guns are improvised firearms usually fashioned out of commonly available materials and so named, I presume, because they can be made quickly and easily.
86? No idea.