spick-and-span
adjEtymology
From spick-and-span-new (literally “new as a recently made spike and chip of wood”) (1570s), from spick (“nail”, variant of spike) + Middle English span-new (“very new”) (from circa 1300 until 1800s), from Old Norse span-nyr, from spann (“chip”) (cognate to Old English spón, English spoon, due to spoons once being made of wood) + nyr (“new”) (cognate to Old English nīewe, English new). Imitation of Dutch spiksplinternieuw (literally “spike-splinter new”), for a freshly built ship. Observe that fresh woodchips are firm and light (if from light wood), but decay and darken rapidly, hence the origin of the term.
1
Idiomatic Clean, spotless.
- I mopped up the kitchen floor so it was spick-and-span.
- Sir, this is a ſpell againſt 'hem, ſpicke and ſpan new, and 'tis made as 'twere in mine owne perſon, and I ſing it in mine owne defence.1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot, […], published 1631, →OCLC, Act III, scene v, page 41:
4 more examples
- My Lady Batten walking through the dirty lane with new spicke and span white shoes.1665 November 24 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “November 15th, 1665”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume (please specify |volume=I to X), London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893–1899, →OCLC:
- The Warders strutted up and down, / And kept their herd of brutes, / Their uniforms were spick and span, / And they wore their Sunday suits, / But we knew the work they had been at, / By the quicklime on their boots.1898, Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol:
- “But the traders ruined his digestion with too much champagne, and after several years he fell for the Gospel according to the Methodists, sent his people to church, and cleaned up the beach and the trading crowd so spick and span that he would not permit them to smoke a pipe out of doors on Sunday, […]1919 [1918], Jack London, The Red One, London: Mills and Boon:
- Mr. and Mrs. Chow, for instance, drew up one afternoon in their spick-and-span coupe with their intolerably spotless only child sitting self-consciously beside them.1922, Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins:
- Related terms
- spick