Where does “handicap” come from?

Handicap comes from the phrase hand in cap, a seventeenth-century parlor game where players drew lots from a cap to determine odds in exchanges of personal goods.

handicap (English): Something that prevents, hampers, or hinders; An...

Definitions

  1. Something that prevents, hampers, or hinders; An...

Ancestry of “handicap”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Englishhand in cap

Words derived from “handicap

Every word from English hand in cap