# Etymology of "bail/bale out" **URL:** \ **Category:** English Grammar & Usage\ **Created:** [January 9, 2022, 12:58pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563 "2022-01-09T12:58:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![afterspivak](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ccd318/32.png) [@afterspivak](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/afterspivak)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 12:58pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/1 "2022-01-09T12:58:54Z")
This usage tripped me up, as it appears to be an obvious error in North American English, but it’s apparently acceptable in the UK. Go figure! Guy ---
**Author:** ![lostinasia](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/lostinasia/32/60703_2.png) [@lostinasia](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/lostinasia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/2 "2022-01-09T13:00:05Z")
> [@afterspivak](#): > > This usage tripped me up, and it appears to be an obvious error in North American English, but it apparently acceptable in the UK. Huh, cool. I had no idea. Usually as a Canadian with British parents I drift between American & British English without even knowing I’ve done it. ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 1:35pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/3 "2022-01-09T13:35:27Z")
You learn something new every day! ---
**Author:** ![Ducked](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@Ducked](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/Ducked)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 2:58pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/4 "2022-01-09T14:58:55Z")
> [@afterspivak](#): > > This usage tripped me up, as it appears to be an obvious error in North American English, but it’s apparently acceptable in the UK. Go figure! > > Guy _" The person who says, “bale out” is thinking of the parachuted person as a bundle being pushed out, like a bale of hay, whereas the person who says “bail out” is thinking of the act of pouring water from a boat."_ I’m the first person, though mostly because the chute, rather than the parachutist, is in fact a bundle, but both spellings are in use pretty much interchangeably for both applications. ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 3:06pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/5 "2022-01-09T15:06:30Z")
> [@Ducked](#): > > " The person who says, “bale out” is thinking of the parachuted person as a bundle being pushed out, like a bale of hay, whereas the person who says “bail out” is thinking of the act of pouring water from a boat." I think we write the first one “bail” too. ---
**Author:** ![Ducked](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@Ducked](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/Ducked)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/6 "2022-01-09T15:12:47Z")
> [@Coronavirus - Taiwan Developments Jan. 2022](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/coronavirus-taiwan-developments-jan-2022/215287/813): > > > [@Ducked](#): > > > > " The person who says, “bale out” is thinking of the parachuted person as a bundle being pushed out, like a bale of hay, whereas the person who says “bail out” is thinking of the act of pouring water from a boat." > > I think we write the first one “bail” too. Assuming “we” are Americans, I wouldn’t know, but if that were right the “Make hay while the sun shines” thang above wouldn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 3:20pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/7 "2022-01-09T15:20:11Z")
It doesn’t work. Nothing particularly suggests it should, really? “Bailing out” of a plane is an intransitive action, and doesn’t correlate directly to pushing out bales of hay. It sounds like a folk etymology of some type, perhaps. > [@Ducked](#): > > Assuming “we” are Americans, I wouldn’t know, That’s why I’m saying! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ducked](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@Ducked](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/Ducked)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 11:27pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/8 "2022-01-09T23:27:42Z")
> [@Coronavirus - Taiwan Developments Jan. 2022](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/coronavirus-taiwan-developments-jan-2022/215287/815): > > It doesn’t work. Nothing particularly suggests it should, really? The fact that it was used above by a poster (presumed American, and presumably correcting my usage) suggests that at least some Americans use bale for hay. Language is defined by use. > [@Coronavirus - Taiwan Developments Jan. 2022](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/coronavirus-taiwan-developments-jan-2022/215287/815): > > “Bailing out” of a plane is an intransitive action, and doesn’t correlate directly to pushing out bales of hay. But “baling out” (an intensive action if ever there was one), does. > [@Coronavirus - Taiwan Developments Jan. 2022](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/coronavirus-taiwan-developments-jan-2022/215287/815): > > It sounds like a folk etymology of some type, perhaps. What does? Baling out? Whats wrong with “folk etymology” anyway? Its RAF, who were folks too. > [@Ducked](#): > > Assuming “we” are Americans, I wouldn’t know, That’s why I’m saying! 🙂 [/quote] Well, _or care_ was kind of implied :slight sneer ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 11:46pm UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/9 "2022-01-09T23:46:15Z")
> [@Ducked](#): > > at least some Americans use bale for hay. Language is defined by use. Americans use bale for hay, yes. But there’s no reason I can see why that would apply to bailing out of an aircraft. I agree that language is defined by use. > [@Ducked](#): > > But “baling out” (an intensive action if ever there was one), does. It’s the same action, said the same way, no matter how you write it. > [@Ducked](#): > > What does? Baling out? Your explanation of its provenance, yes. > [@Ducked](#): > > Whats wrong with “folk etymology” anyway? > Its RAF, who were folks too. “Folk etymology” is an expansion that may sound more or less plausible on the surface but isn’t backed by historical example. Is there any evidence that’s why the RAF for example started saying that? > [@Ducked](#): > > Well, _or care_ was kind of implied If you don’t care, that’s your issue. I don’t see why you’d be talking about it then 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TT](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tt/32/271883_2.png) [@TT](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/TT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:44am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/10 "2022-01-10T00:44:24Z")
> [@tempogain](#): > > But there’s no reason I can see why that would apply to bailing out of an aircraft These are two different words that happen to have the same pronunciation. Bailing out of an airplane almost certainly comes from the nautical counterpart. Maybe I wasn’t able to follow the discussion closely enough… ![Bailing-out](https://forumosauploads-12829.kxcdn.com/original/3X/9/f/9f608fe1ad2eac5c1be845e98b46d0051f9d5cd7.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 1:08am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/11 "2022-01-10T01:08:23Z")
> [@TT](#): > > Bailing out of an airplane almost certainly comes from the nautical counterpart. Seems plausible enough. > **[Bailout - Etymology, Origin & Meaning](https://www.etymonline.com/word/bailout)** > > "federal help for private business in trouble," from 1968; it is unclear which sense of… See origin and meaning of bailout. > To bail out “leave suddenly” (intransitive) is recorded from 1930, originally of airplane pilots. Perhaps there is some influence from [bail](https://www.etymonline.com/word/bail?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_46573) (v.2) “procure (someone’s) release from prison.” Related: Bailed; bailing. Well, that maybe too. > **[On the Trail of "Bailing Out"](https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/on-the-trail-of-bailing-out/)** > > The history of bailouts, from rescuing pilots to rescuing financial institutions. > In its latest revisions, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the verb _bail out_ , meaning “to make an emergency descent by parachute from an airplane,” back to 1925, when aviation was still quite young. An article from the _Oakland_ (Calif.) _Tribune_ from that year referred to a “pilot who has to ‘bail out’ hurriedly from a crippled or burning plane.” The verb soon became a noun: a [list](http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505A&L=ads-l&P=19839) of aviator slang appearing in the _Lima_ (Ohio) _News_ on Oct 12, 1928 explains that “a ‘bail out’ is navy slang for jumping out of a plane to make a parachute jump.” > So how did we end up with _bail out_ in the first place? One potential clue is that the typical British spelling of the expression is _bale out_ . That spelling suggests a historical relation to the noun _[bale](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/bale)_ , defined by the Visual Thesaurus as “a large bundle bound for storage or transport.” To _bale_ (something) _out_ " thus evokes the image of letting a bundle out through a trapdoor, which is how those early aviators escaped from their planes before opening their parachutes. On the other hand, spelling it the American way, _bail out_ , brings to mind bailing water out of a boat — or it could suggest getting someone out of prison by paying bail. These two senses of _[bail](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/bail)_ both go back to the Latin word _baiulare_ “to carry a load,” but via different French intermediaries: the “remove water” sense is from _baille_ meaning “bucket,” while the “release from prison” sense is from the verb _baillier_ meaning “to take charge of.” _Bale_ , meanwhile, is unrelated, going back to a Germanic root probably related to the word _ball_ . ❓ ---
**Author:** ![afterspivak](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ccd318/32.png) [@afterspivak](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/afterspivak)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/12 "2022-01-10T01:46:20Z")
That is awesome. Taiwan had no idea what it was signing up for when it proposed its current Bilingualism 2030 scheme. :rofl: Guy ---
**Author:** ![Shaun008](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/shaun008/32/209482_2.png) [@Shaun008](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/Shaun008)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 1:42am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/13 "2022-01-10T01:42:16Z")
From my understanding when i was taught at school way back, none of my family was RAF but a couple of my teachers where. (remember I’m dyslexic so all this American v British usage is lost on me, i just liked the story) Back in the day the parachute was baled up into the container (parachute bag) and would be thrown by hand, so as they where getting ready to jump the order would be given to get your bale out. I have no proof of this, its just one of the things that stuck in my head from school, before getting a clout for spelling it wrong anyway. ---
**Author:** ![olm](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/olm/32/91247_2.png) [@olm](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/olm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:44am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/14 "2022-01-10T05:44:23Z")
TLDR: I’m wondering if the below explanation makes sense. Maybe depends on the definition of “early”, but my feeling is that “trap doors” like for bales of hay were not a super common way of exiting aircraft. > evokes the image of letting a bundle out through a trapdoor, which is how those early aviators escaped from their planes before opening their parachutes. Uhm… Which early planes (or even later ones) had “trap doors” for people emergency exiting? As far as I understand, parachutes were coming into common use (common issue) in aircraft in the last year of WW1. Observation balloons used them earlier, throughout the war. Anyway, at that time aircraft (or balloons) generally didn’t even have closed canopies, meaning people just got in/out through the open cockpit hole on top of the plane. So a trap door would not seem to be common in WW1 (and possibly neither the "opening their parachutes - the Rip cord seems to have been invented later, at that time parachutes mostly seemed to have been automatically opened by a cord attached to the balloon or airplane). And later? I’m not very familiar with the inter bellum years’ planes, but in WW2 trap doors in airplanes might have been a bit more common. At least on some bigger multi-engined bomber planes with closed canopies, which were partly (for certain positions) entered and possibly exited through doors and ladders in the bottom of the fuselage. [Example B17](https://thearrowheadclub.com/2015/07/08/how-to-bail-out-of-a-b-17/), where part of the crew was supposed to also exit through the “trap door”-like bomb bay doors. ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:50am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/15 "2022-01-10T05:50:27Z")
Good points. The 1928 US citation above says "“a ‘bail out’ is navy slang for jumping out of a plane to make a parachute jump.” which could point to a nautical origin. The earliest usages seem to be from the US. > **['Bale out/bail out' - the meaning and origin of this phrase](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/bale-out-bail-out.html)** > > The meaning and origin of the phrase 'Bale out/bail out'. ---
**Author:** ![superking](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/superking/32/197217_2.png) [@superking](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/superking)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:16am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/16 "2022-01-10T09:16:07Z")
I thought there were two things. 1. Bale out the back of the van. (To toss out like hay) 2. Bail me out, I’m broke. (To make bail etc) One involves movement and one involves helping. I’m English, (to explain my provenance.) ---
**Author:** ![BiggusDickus](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/biggusdickus/32/90381_2.png) [@BiggusDickus](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/BiggusDickus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 10:36am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/17 "2022-01-10T10:36:36Z")
My thoughts, for what they’re worth, are bale out refers to chucking something out of the plane. Makes perfect limey sense to me. I do have bad teeth. But it’s never stopped me getting action, to date. ---
**Author:** ![Tianmu](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/a8b319/32.png) [@Tianmu](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/Tianmu)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 10:53am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/18 "2022-01-10T10:53:39Z")
Unless you’re talking about hay, bale is an odd choice of spelling. ---
**Author:** ![tempogain](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/tempogain/32/264650_2.png) [@tempogain](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/tempogain)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 11:05am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/19 "2022-01-10T11:05:05Z")
Not in the UK, it seems! ---
**Author:** ![BiggusDickus](https://forumosa-12829.kxcdn.com/user_avatar/tw.forumosa.com/biggusdickus/32/90381_2.png) [@BiggusDickus](https://tw.forumosa.com/u/BiggusDickus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 11:34am UTC](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563/20 "2022-01-10T11:34:24Z")
There will be a reason, however nowadays daft, for the odd spelling. I think the throwing out of a bale makes more sense than some bailing out of water. Never forget the French, though. Mayday is a classic example. [Next page](https://tw.forumosa.com/t/etymology-of-bail-bale-out/215563.md?page=2)