' he got the drop on us '

In some western movies one cowboy says to another 'looks like he got the drop on us Tex'.Just wondering what there that phrase originated?

Solution 1:

The Ngram shows usage rising in about 1875 and then increasing in the early 1900s.

To get the drop on someone or something means to be at an advantage over it, particularly if you were competing over some outcome. This phrase's etymology is rather clouded, unfortunately. What scholars do know is that it appeared as a slang sometime around the middle of the 19th century. It appears to have originated with the quick-draw duels of the wild west, when two men would face each other in an empty street and try to be the first to draw their gun and shoot the other. The expression came to include the more general sense of a timely advantage by the turn of the 20th century. Around this same time another version appeared as get/have the jump on. Though this has the same general meaning, its connotation is more along the lines of having an advantage because you started the quickest.

Word Ancestry

Other references favour the idea that the fast drawing of a gun forces the opposing party to 'drop' their gun, and to hold their hands up in surrender. If so, it may be difficult, or impossible, to determine its first usage which would probably have been verbal and widespread before anything appeared in print that can be documented.

Solution 2:

In the mid 19th century, plays were all the rage. About then, the works of the Greek playwrite Aeschylus were newly translated to English and published. Aeschylus is often called the "Father of Tragedy", and reportedly died when a Golden Eagle tried to break open a turtle shell by dropping it on a "rock", which turned out to be the playwrite's bald head. In case you're wondering, reputable ornithology sources (e.g., Cornell Labs) report that some Golden Eagles really do hunt turtles in this manner. So I'm just speculating, but I wonder if the new translations made some buzz about Aeschylus, and the phrase "getting the drop on someone" arose from this buzz. After all getting the advantage over someone when they're not paying attention sounds a bit like the Eagle and Aeschylus.