punchy adj.1

"to thrust, push; jostle;" also, "to prod, drive (cattle, etc.) by poking and prodding," late 14c., from Old French ponchonner "to punch, prick, stamp," from ponchon "pointed tool, piercing weapon" (see punch (n.1)).

Meaning "to pierce, make a hole or holes in with a punch, emboss with a tool" is from early 15c.; meaning "to stab, puncture" is from mid-15c. Related: Punched; punching.

Specialized sense "to hit with the fist, give a blow, beat with blows of the fist" is recorded by 1520s. Compare Latin pugnare "to fight with the fists," from a root meaning "to pierce, sting." In English this sense-shift evolved also probably by influence of punish: Punch or punsch for punish is found in documents from 14c.-15c.:

punchyth me, Lorde, and spare my blyssyd wyff Anne. [Coventry Mystery Plays, late 15c.]

To punch (someone) out "beat (someone) up" is from 1971. To punch a ticket, etc., "make a hole in" to indicate use of it is from mid-15c. To punch the clock "record one's arrival at or departure from the workplace using an automated timing device" is from 1900.

There are time recorders for checking the minute of arrival and departure of each office employee—machines that operate with clock attachment and which in response to worker's punch print on tabular sheets of paper his promptnesses and delinquencies. [Richard Lord, "Running an Office by Machinery," in System, September 1909]

Perhaps you are some great big chief, who has a lot to say.

Who lords it o'er the common herd who chance to come your way;

Well, here is where your arrogance gets a dreadful shock,

When you march up, like a private, salute, and PUNCH THE CLOCK.

[from "Punch the Clock," by "The Skipper," The Commercial Telegraphers' Journal, May 1912]

adjective suffix, "full of or characterized by," from Old English -ig, from Proto-Germanic *-iga- (source also of Dutch, Danish, German -ig, Gothic -egs), from PIE -(i)ko-, adjectival suffix, cognate with elements in Greek -ikos, Latin -icus (see -ic). Originally added to nouns in Old English; used from 13c. with verbs, and by 15c. even with other adjectives (for example crispy). Adjectives such as hugy, vasty are artificial words that exist for the sake of poetical metrics.

"a quick blow, dig, or thrust with the fist," by 1570s, probably from punch (v.). In early use it also could refer to blows with the foot or jabs with a staff or club. Originally especially of blows that sink in to some degree ("... whom he unmercifully bruises and batters from head to foot: here a slap in the chaps, there a black eye, now a punch in the stomach, and then a kick on the breech," Monthly Review, 1763).

The figurative sense of "forceful, vigorous quality" is recorded from 1911. Punch line (also punch-line) is from 1915, originally in popular-song writing. To beat (someone) to the punch in the figurative sense is from 1915, a metaphor from boxing (where it is attested by 1913). Punch-drunk "dazed from continued punching, having taken so many punches one can no longer feel it" is from 1915 (alternative form slug-nutty is from 1933; compare sleep-drunk, 1889, "confused and excited while being half awakened from a sound sleep").