Soup

The word soup surprised me as it has many more meanings than I originally thought.

The most commonly used definition, as seen in the AHD is; "A liquid food prepared from meat, fish, or vegetable stock and often containing solid ingredients".

It is also a slang word having a plethora of meanings including; "To modify something so as to increase its capacity to perform or satisfy, esp. to add horsepower" or in the idiom in the soup meaning "Having difficulties; in trouble".



Originally used in the phrase "soup up", the soup in this context was actually material injected into a horse to make it run faster, according to AHD.



The word comes from the Old French, souppe or sope. This later passed into the French soupe and then into Middle English where the -e was dropped and we now have "Soup".*

*All etymological history from www.oed.com