The Origin of the Phrase “Pulling Your Leg”
For those who aren’t familiar with the phrase, when someone says, “You must be pulling my leg!” they usually mean, “You must be joking/teasing/making something up.” Extremely popular in the 20th century, the origin of this phrase is still something of an enigma to etymologists.
There are two popular theories about how this phrase came about, neither of which is backed up by any real evidence nor are they that plausible. First, is that thieves used to pull at people’s legs to trip them. Once the victim was on the ground, the thieves would have ample opportunity to rob them. While it is an interesting story, the plausibility is low and the details of the origin change too much to be taken seriously. Some people say that this happened in the vague “medieval markets” or “Victorian London,” while others give an exact date—say, 1882—with confidence. Unfortunately, the lack of any documented evidence of this origin theory makes it nothing more than a fanciful guess.
The second origin theory has to do with executions by suspension hanging at Tyburn in England. It’s believed that people were occasionally hired to hang on to the victim’s legs to give them a quicker death. Suspension hanging typically results in a much slower death than long drop hanging, and the extra weight on the victim’s legs could potentially make the rope mercifully work a little faster. However, this theory is also discounted as, among other reasons, there is no documented evidence of how the phrase made the leap from “hanging” to “joke/lying.” Plus, there is no record of the phrase during the time suspension hangings were popular. As many important figures, among others, experienced death by suspension hanging, one would think the phrase ought to have appeared in at least one of the reports of the deaths.
So when did this phrase first appear? The earliest record of it appeared in the diary of James Gallatin in 1821, but there is a caveat as you’ll soon see:
Mr. Adams is not a man of great force or intelligence, but his own opinion of himself is immense. I really think father, in a covert way, pulls his leg. I know he thinks little of his talents and less of his manners.
This diary was published in 1914 as The Diary of James Gallatin, Secretary to Albert Gallatin, a great peace maker, 1813-1827, but it is thought to be a fake. It was put together by Gallatin’s grandson who is thought to have made up much of what was in it. So we can’t reliably say that “pulls his leg” was really around in 1821, and it probably wasn’t given the many decades between this instance of the phrase and the next documented instance.
As for that, it appeared in The Newark Daily Advocate in Ohio in 1883:
It is now the correct thing to say that a man who has been telling you preposterous lies has been ‘pulling your leg.’
This explanation seems to imply that the phrase was relatively new at the time.
Now, another much less popular definition for the phrase that was also around at this stage of the game was “to ask a person for something, especially money.” From this, perhaps it was the case that it originally had to do with someone trying to trick you into giving them money, often by lying to do it. And perhaps the leg part of the phrase came about based on that when someone was doing this, they were metaphorically pulling at one’s trouser pockets to get said funds in them. Who knows? I just made that up, which means it has just about as much evidence backing it up as the aforementioned theories.
In the end, we don’t know exactly what this phrase’s origins are, but we do know as far as any evidence is concerned, it seemingly didn’t have anything to do with thieves or executions, and probably not trouser pockets either. It might not even have anything to do with actual legs- there are other leg related phrases that are known to not have had anything to do with physical legs. And no, I’m not pulling your leg with this one.
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Bonus Facts:
- An extension of “pulling someone’s leg” is “pull the other one, it’s got bells on.” It’s the victim’s way of saying “I know you’re joking, I’m not stupid.” This dates to the 1960s, and the bells are supposedly a reference to jesters.
- Another slightly murky leg related phrase is “costing an arm and a leg.” This phrase originated during World War II, and it is probably a combination of other phrases like “I would give my right arm for…” which meant you really, really wanted something. Given the time period, it could also be a reference to the soldiers who had, in fact, lost arms and legs, which was a reminder of the high cost they paid for the war. It could also simply mean that if someone was to sell a limb, it would only be for a huge amount of money.
- To “shake a leg” means to “hurry up.” This phrase was coined in the early 1900s, as evidenced by a 1904 article in the New York Magazine which explicitly defines the meaning. Originally, the phrase had to do with dancing and dancers. An 1863 advertisement for a ball stated: “Nearly every man in town able to shake a leg has purchased a ticket.” From there, the phrase evolved into “hurry up,” probably something to do with dancers’ quick feet.
- Another “limb” phrase is “to go out on a limb,” but this has nothing to do with human limbs. Rather, as you probably already guessed, it has to do with climbing trees. If you go out on a limb on a tree, you’re putting yourself in a precarious position, which is related to the phrase’s meaning: “to put yourself in a disadvantaged position in support of something.”
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what is the origin for,,,
(hell bent for leather)
or another very very common phrase,, in the (meantime)
thank you very very much Folks
I think I may have another possible origin for this phrase.
There is a trick that it is to this day implemented by tent revival preachers and “healers” that involves curing lameness in people by first showing that their legs are of different length. Then with a trick of anatomy and perspective they manage to make both legs equal length and “cure” the subject. Of course, through the power of the holy spirit, or something.
Here are a few videos and articles out there that are going to explain it a bit better than I did. Here is one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpz_9_KalFY&noredirect=1
and an articloe about it: http://heathen-hub.com/blog.php?b=605
This seems to me a very viable solution to the etymology of the phrase. If I recall correctly, just about the time we have the second mention (or first depending on the veracity of the first example) in The Newark Daily Advocate in Ohio in 1883 it was also a time of great religious revival (Was it? I seem to recall that but I am not 100% sure).
I can totally see some hucksters employing this trick, the smarter members of the audience finding out it’s fakeness and the phrase eventually entering common use as a synonym for getting fooled.
I think this is the answer. I’ve seen this several times in my life and always understood it to be the source of the phrase.
the phrase in my opinion would have come from the habit of beggars, seated near foot traffic, pulling at the trousers of passers by to get their attention and plead for coins. Perhaps they weren’t really crippled, but only pulling your leg for those coins.
I always figured that the etymology of this phrase derived from Genesis 25:26 – the birth and name Jacob from the birth of the twins Esau and Jacob.
“Pulling your leg” means getting jerked off.
It has come to mean lying/kidding.
” I really think father, in a covert way, pulls his leg.”
This would be a different meaning of leg-pulling, as in “he pulled his leg behind him”, as in he didn’t utilise his full potential.
Pulling your leg comes from andreus vesalius .
The midget who discovered modern anatomy .
It was used as a threat by parents much like the bogey man will get you .
His wiki page & other writings have been cleaned up & no longer mention that he was in jail for theft of body parts.
Criminals bodies that were hung would be left for a week . Vesalius desperately wanted the bodies but was not able to get them down as he was a midget . Therefore he would pull on the legs hoping the rope would break , however the legs fell off & he would run away to dissect & study .
They claim he left paris because of the holy war , he was caught once & spent time in jail. He then moved to another university but was caught again & didnt stay long . Caught again in padua he persuaded a judge that his research was significant enough to be allowed a supply of dead criminal bodies .
The reason this is all kept so secret is that the medical world do not want someone so important to be anything other than pearly whites & silvery soft lined clouds .
According to my Italian grandmother, who grew up in Porto, this idiom comes from pirate days. When the peg-legged boson was sufficiently drunk on rum and pillaging, he would trick the new shipmates by having them pull his leg. The new shipmate was ignorant of the peg, and once it came off the boson would demand they walk the plank.
Interesting stuff! Just a few of points about execution:
– The use of the long drop and hanging at Tyburn were not contemporaneous, the former not being devised or used until 1872 and the last hanging at Tyburn taking place almost exactly ninety years earlier in 1783.
– It was usually either the executioner himself or one of his assistants who was bribed to accelerate the hanging process (no one else generally wanted to get so intimately involved in an execution) and it was up to the individual how this was accomplished; this no doubt included pulling on the legs.
– In those days, hanging was usually reserved for common criminals who were not regarded as important; thus anyone executed who may have been important enough to inspire a new expression, would have been given a much more memorable death.
Just to be clear, although I do like the execution theory of the origin for “pulling someone’s leg,” I recognise it has more holes than a Swiss cheese and we will probably never know the actual origin, but I just wanted to add some clarification to the often-overlooked subject of executions.
Could have a stage origin where someone would delay an entrance on stage hoping for embarrassment or comic effect?
From a program on mining, it refers to a leg of wood shoved under a minecart converted into a makeshift bathroom during the early mining days, with no bathroom facilities. One joke down there was to pull the leg, so the cart would careen down the tracks if there was any slope to the tracks at all … Hence also the bells on phrase, because they would bell the leg to warn them someone was pulling – time to jump off!!
pulling the leg probably had to do with pulling your third leg.
Costs an arm and a leg – I believe comes from portrait painting. Head and shoulders was the standard and if you wanted the whole body e.g. arms and legs was considerately more expensive.
Check out Genesis 25:24-34 ( in the Bible) Jacob was born, a twin holding the heel of his brother Esau, thus his name given. Jacob means in the Hebrew “ heel”, but also the connotation of “deceiver”. Pulling my leg or grasp someone by the heel, apparently a figure of speech meaning “to deceive”
According to “Burleycue” (1931) by Bernard Sobel in the chapter named, “Leg-pulling”:
“Meanwhile the girls were compelled to look to their own interests. Leg-pulling, antecedent of gold-digging, grew into a stage prerogative. nevertheless, the leg-pulling led seldom to capitulation.”
and later:
“Of course, people as poor as this had to go in for leg-pulling. They were entitled to gifts from gentlemen who cared to bask in their beauty; especially rich and old gentlemen who endow stage beauties for the pleasure of their society only.”
and:
“Of course, the leg-pulling of the burlesque girls did not mount up toe large figures as the men they met seldom had extensive means. Yet they managed well within these limitations. Sometimes the drug store was a ready aid to their negotiations. Here they would take a John, induce him to buy them perfume and here after they got rid of the John, they would return either to sell everything back at half-price or to state that they were returning everything because their roommates had just made a similar investment.”
While it doesn’t give a definition of leg-pulling (Sorbel assumes his readers know the meaning of the phrase), it appears to be the practice of flirting to get gifts, free meals and cash from admirers. Sorbel implies that if any actual prostitution went on, the performers stood a good chance of getting kicked out of the company.
Sorbel quotes theater manager, Jack Singer: “The girls seldom gave in to their Johns. Just kept stalling them all the time. If she got a real good John, she’d send him a letter saying manager wants to fire her and if he’d send twenty or thirty dollars for fare she would come on to him. After she received the money, would write another letter and say manager wouldn’t let her quit until season was over. Then he’d send another check.”
It doesn’t really establish whether “leg-pulling” was named somehow for the practice or if the practice was named after the phrase, but it’s an interesting tidbit of info and seems to line up with the mid-to-late 1800s.
While observing my dog and my goats, I have a completely different theory. My goats had kids last year. Once the little ones were weaned, my watchdog, a Great Pyrenees mix, would chase them around and grab one of their hind legs. The goat would run and make a screaming noise. It appeared to me that the dog thought this was hilarious.
The dog never hurt the goats, but it was her form of playing with them, while training them to do what she wanted. The dog was “pulling their legs”.
Actually, Tracie Dallas above got it right. This phrase has been around far longer than whoever researched this article determined. In the bible the twins Jacob and Esau were born and Esau was born first and when he was delivered Jacob was grasping his heal. As the story progresses we discover that Jacob tricks his brother into selling him his firstborn rights to inheritance and later, when their father dies Jacob dresses up like his brother and tricks his blind father into believing he is his brother so his father will bless him and give him Esau’s blessing and it works. The name Jacob came to mean “heal-grabber” or “leg puller.”
In the New Testament Nathaniel’s brother tells him that he has met the messiah and it’s Jesus of Nazareth Nathaniel makes a sarcastic comment and says”Nazarath? Can anything good come from Nazareth?” When he later is on his way to meet Jesus for the first time, Jesus see him coming from a distance and makes a joke to the group about Nathaniel (John 1:47) He calls him an Israelite in whom there is no deceit or we might say An Israelite and he’s no jokester. The joke being that Jacob was renamed Israel by God and he was the father of the 12 tribes of israel. So Jesus was getting him back for his comment about anything good coming from Nazareth. Pulling someone’s leg meant the same thing then as it does today and the first recorded usage of it is actually in the greek New Testament.