| 词汇 | finagle |
| 词源 | finagle; finagle factor. A 1939 contribution to Modern Lan- guage Notes quoted in the Dictionary of American Regional En- glish suggests that finagle, meaning to get something by guile or trickery, to wangle or scheme, may come from the name of the “German proponent of mnemonics” Gregor von Feinaigle (1765?–1819), “who lectured (and was often ridiculed in England and France. . . . )” Another possible eponym is a Ger- man mesmerist and whist expert of the Regency (1812–20) named Feinagel, who apparently cheated at cards. Or perhaps Feinaigle and Feinagel are the same man. Most authorities say the origin of finagle (rhymes with bagel or Hegel) is uncertain, or that it is a variant of fainaigue, an English dialect word meaning “to shirk work, cheat at cards, to renege on a debt.” The earliest recorded date for finagle (in the form of finagler) is 1922. Finagle factor, according to the New Dictionary of Ameri- can Slang, refers to “the putative mathematical constant by which a wrong answer is multiplied to get a right answer.” It is also called Fink’s factor, and no particular Fink seems to be involved. |
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