2788: Deadline [updated] Aug 8, 2024

Some phrases don’t have any connection to their original meanings because the words change, or lose meaning, but sometimes it is just a language shift based off of nothing in particular. The phrase ‘deadline’ does indeed come from the words “dead + line”, and was popularized after the American Civil War, especially from the unimaginably bad conditions of Andersonville prison where—critically undersupplied—it was easier to make a crude fence beyond which anyone attempting even to place a hand would be shot on site rather than to construct a proper wall. This was not the origin of the phrase, but, even scarcely used, was the dominant source of the phrase in the 19th century.

It was revived in the early 20th century in the printing industry for newspapers, denoting the space past which text would not be printed in the margins. Although it is not clear how, this translated into the sense of “due-date / time-limit” probably referring to filling the page up to the margins.