Origin Story
Sabotage comes from the French sabot ("wooden shoe"). During the Industrial Revolution, as machines began to replace workers, French laborers resisted in various ways. The most famous account holds that workers threw their wooden shoes (sabots) into the machinery to break it. A more likely explanation, however, is that saboter originally meant "to clatter about in wooden shoes → to work clumsily → to deliberately botch a job." In 1897 the French labor movement adopted sabotage as a formal term for "deliberate obstruction directed at an employer," and the meaning later widened to include wartime acts of destruction.
The sabot was the traditional footwear of French and Dutch peasants. The Dutch wooden shoe is called a clog, which carries a similar etymological legend. Yet there is no confirmed historical record of anyone actually throwing wooden shoes into machinery.
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Oxford English Dictionarysabotage: from French sabotage, from saboter "to make a noise with sabots, bungle, destroy willfully," from sabot "wooden shoe"
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Online Etymology Dictionarysabotage (n.): 1910, from French sabotage, from saboter "to sabotage, bungle," literally "to clatter with wooden shoes (sabots)"
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Merriam-Webster DictionaryFrench, from saboter to clatter with sabots, botch, from sabot wooden shoe — the connection to labor disputes was formalized in 1897
Word Evolution
Words from the Same Root
Memory Hook
sabotage = sabot ("wooden shoe") + -age. "Wreck it with a wooden shoe!" — the worker's revolt where a shoe became a weapon.
""A single wooden shoe stopped the machines of the Industrial Revolution — and coined a new word.""
