by The origin of the word gig is surprisingly mysterious, with many false claims and no agreed upon explanation.
In the present day, ‘gig’ has become a heavily utilised word. It’s two main definitions are supplied by the Cambridge Dictionary above: a performance by a music act, or other live show, or a job.
The latter came from the former, and for employment can often mean a short term role. This is because music ‘gigs’ usually describe one show or appearance.
But how the word attached itself to music in the first place, is not known.
Gig is an English word, and can be traced to the late 18th century. It was originally the name for a type of horse drawn carriage; the Oxford English dictionary lists 1791 as its first recorded use.
A gig was a small, light, wooden contraption, with large wheels. Usually carrying two people, a driver and a passenger, it was designed for speed; only a small amount of luggage could be accommodated under the seat.
Zipping rapidly along the streets of England’s growing cities, gigs were designed for ease of use, and quick, short excursions. Literature from the period is full of accounts of gig rides, and owning one was a mark of some level of social status.
The Admiral and Mrs. Croft were generally out of doors together, interesting themselves in their new possessions, their grass, and their sheep, and dawdling about in a way not endurable to a third person, or driving out in a gig, lately added to their establishment.
‘Persuasion’, Jane Austen
The name was a shortened version of a much older English word, ‘whirligig’. Dating from the 15th century, whirligigs described a variety of spinning objects: tops and other child’s toys, and later weathervanes and windmills.
The rapidly spinning wheels of the horsedrawn carriage, called whirligigs to mind.
Gig would not attach itself to music for more than 200 years. The first recorded references are from the 1920s.
An article in ‘Billboard’, a US music and theatre magazine, has the first found to date.
When an orchestra played soft and low behind the palms at a fashionable wedding, when a jazz band sang and played as you ate, when the musicians played a tune or two to keep the audience amused till the speaker arrived… you witnessed a “Gig,” for that is the term by which such employment is known to about four thousand musicians and singers.
‘Gigging’, Billboard, August 6 1921
Later in the 1920s, in the United Kingdom, ‘Melody Maker’ magazine also began using the term. Its use grew thereafter.
A question lexicographers and word buffs have not been able to solve, is how this came about. How did a spinning top, or horse and carriage, travel two centuries forward in time and come to represent live performance?
The Oxford English dictionary lists the etymology of gig, in regard to music, as: unknown. But while there is no consensus, there are theories.
One links it to a French word, ‘gigue’. This was a type of music, and accompanying lively dance, popular in the 17th century.
Less well known than other types of classical music, gigues were not usually performed at court. But they were well established among the upper classes across Europe, and names as famous as Bach and Handel, composed them.
Here then, are similar words with a connection to music. This has sometimes been cited as the explanation, notably by jazz historian Robert S. Gold, in the 1960s.
But while plausible, this theory has holes. If the origin can be traced to the 1700s, how to explain the long gap in recorded usage, till the 1920s?
It should also be noted that ‘gigue’ is pronounced with a geee sound, and not the hard ‘ga’ of gig.
Another potential explanation dates from the mid-19th century.
In this period in America, illicit, underground gambling began to flourish in the major cities. One of the most common games played was a kind of lottery, often called ‘The Numbers’.
Players would buy a ticket, or tickets, and be given a number for each one; if their number was drawn out, they would win the prize pool.
Twelve strips of paper were drawn at random from a container, often a wheel, that held slips numbered from one to seventy-eight. Players were free to bet any amount on specific numbers; the most common play, known as a “gig,” wagered that a combination of three different numbers would be drawn in any order.
‘Dreaming of Lucky Numbers’, Cabinet magazine, Christopher W. Vandegrift
The numbers game was so popular, the results were published in the newspaper. But how ‘gig’ attached itself to it, is also unclear.
It may have been because the container the numbers were drawn from was circular, linking back to whirligigs. Or it may have been an equestrian element: other bet types in the same game were called horses, saddles and whips.
Horse race betting was the most common type of gambling at the time, and its terminology may have spread.
Playing the numbers was particularly popular in black and minority communities. These also supplied many of America’s casual musicians in the early twentieth century: this seems to give a plausible link between the two uses of ‘gig’.
While this theory seems strong, researchers have their reservations. Evidence that ‘gig’ was used in 19th century gambling is thin, with only a couple of known references; there are far more in this context, after it attached itself to music.
It could be that music gigs lead to its widespread use as a gambling term, not the other way around.
Still other theories have been proposed.
Some link it to the Irish term ‘jig’, or old English ‘giga’, both meaning: dance. Others have tried a connection to ‘gag’; nowadays a term for a prank or joke, originally used to describe a live performance.
But these ideas are based on the similarity of the words involved. There is no strong evidence of a linguistic link to any.
Online you will find posts saying it started as an acronym, meaning ‘God is great’; used by impoverished musicians, grateful to get a paying job. There is no evidence for this either.
Music gigs remain mysterious. Like many English words, it simply seemed to appear one day, and was widely used thereafter.
Unless earlier references are found, this mystery may prove unsolvable.
