Where does the term, elbow grease come from?

Question

Yeah, I know what it means, but what does working have to do with elbows???

Answer 1

picture someone on their hands and knees scrubbing a floor with a towel....when they get into it real good and are shining as hard as they can....their elbows are rubbing the floor too as they swipe.....thats really putting your back into it and workin up to your elbows!

Answer 2

Basically it means sweat.
Work hard enough to get a sweat up.

The phrase is very old.

: Elbow-grease (humorous). Vigorous rubbing, proverbially referred to as the best unguent for polishing furniture. Hence, allusively, energetic labour of any kind.


ELBOW GREASE -- "Elbow grease has been a term of 'hard manual labor' since before 1639, 'B.E.'s Dictionary of Canting Crew' (ca. 1698) calling it 'A derisory term for Sweat.' The old joke that 'elbow grease' is the best brand of furniture poish was probably common centuries ago, too, in some form. The phrase was known in France from early times as well (buile de bras)." From the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

Answer 3

Elbow grease is an old term for working hard at manual labor or trades. Kind of like, if you keep your elbows greased, your arms can keep working, and you won't slack off.

***Strenuous physical effort, as in You'll have to use some elbow grease to get the house painted in time. This term alludes to vigorous use of one's arm in cleaning, polishing, or the like. It soon was extended to any kind of hard work, and Anthony Trollope used it still more figuratively (Thackeray, 1874): "Forethought is the elbow-grease which a novelist ... requires."***

Answer 4

It's a term that goes wayyyyyy back.
Most work involves handling something that involve moving your arms and hands. You wrist and elbow bends very noticeably when you do things like was floors, turn a wrench, carry a suitcase, etc - hence, the mythical elbow grease helps

Answer 5

The phrase elbow grease "hard rubbing" is attested from 1672, from jocular sense of "the best substance for polishing furniture."

"Elbow" is also a verb, meaning (circularly) "to thrust with the elbow."

Answer 6

Simple put,
Elbows are joints that when not moved, (as with all joints in the body) become stiff.
The synovial pads in those joints provide lubrication when they are indeed moved, and hence the term "elbow grease".

Answer 7

Well, according to Will, if you are working your BRAIN, nothing, except to swat a fly or something. Otherwise, it's common sense, according to me.