the price of apples was pegged to $0.50 a pound.the Renminbi was pegged to the US dollar.
The world of computer science itself has frequently borrowed and adapted such idiomatic usage.
What is the origin of " driving me crazy".Įnglish is full of idiomatic usage, like any language. Would be akin to asking the difficult to answer question What is the origin of " peg down your expenditure" To be a square peg in a round hole "be inappropriate for one's situation" is attested from 1836 to take someone down a peg is from 1580s, but the original literal sense is uncertain (most of the likely candidates are not attested until centuries later). Mid-15c., from Middle Dutch pegge "peg," a common Low German word (Low German pigge "peg," German Pegel "gauge rod, watermark," Middle Dutch pegel "little knob used as a mark," Dutch peil "gauge, watermark, standard"), of uncertain origin perhaps from PIE *bak- "staff used as support" (see bacillus). The word is of Dutch and Germanic origin. The original meaning of the word peg is a small stake driven to the ground or onto a wall to hold something down, or an item used as mark. That two different people might understand the word in the same way, albeit by different routes, would only make it more likely to become current. Since at the time talking about a car or engine being pegged could both be referring to this or also in the earlier senses I give above, chances are it's actually a combination of both that led to it being used. Tachometers and similar dial-based measures are from around the same time, though I don't know when they first had pegs to block overrun, but it certainly has led to people talking of dials being pegged in the twentieth century so it's there as a source too. The first two are by analogy of pegs used to fasten something, while the last is more obscure. Poems 132 I' th' meanteyme th' fiddlers changt an playt As hard as they cud peg.Īll of these show that being stuck on the maximum level has had analogous uses for some time. Peg in the sense of toiling labouriously for a long period:ġ805 J. 8 Apr., Arbitrarily raising prices against them-‘pegging prices up’, it is called. 15 I will not be pegged down to any plot.ġ882 Pall Mall Gazette.
Peg in the sense of restricted or constrained, 19th C:ġ824 W. (Unfortunately the only other reference I can find on short notice is Urban Dictionary (sense 6).) On this one you don't have to worry about needle damage, since the gauge is circular, but you wouldn't want to have it measuring a pressure of about 100 psi and only showing a reading of about 20 psi because it had wrapped around. Here is an image of a gauge, with the peg circled in green.
(Hitting the peg is not damaging in the way that hitting the casing would be because the peg is placed much closer to the base of the needle than the tip, so there is less torque being exerted, and the torque is usually on a thicker part of the needle.) Thus, when you achieve the highest speed the gauge will show, you have "pegged the needle". To prevent the indicator needle from going too far beyond that marking and possibly getting bent or otherwise damaged when it hits the casing, a small peg is placed at or slightly beyond the maximum marking. Many analog gauges such as speedometers have a maximum marking which is technically not as high as you might be able to make the reading actually go.