20 Everyday Words and Phrases Turning 50 in 2026

It’s easy to forget that new words, just like everything else that comes in and out of fashion, are being coined all the time. As a result, every year has its own batch of newbies that have been invented or were first used in the past 12 months.

Looking back in time, though, that gives lexicographers and etymologists alike the task of tracking down when the words we’ve had in our language for decades were used for the first time—and, as best as their research can tell us, all the words and phrases in this list were coined precisely 50 years ago, in 1976.

1. 800-Pound Gorilla
2. Ableism
3. Athleisure
4. Aviophobia
5. Butterfly Effect
6. Cool-Down
7. Couch Potato
8. Digital Camera
9. Drum Machine
10. Ethernet
11. Exit Poll
12. French Press
13. Meme
14. Out-There
15. Radical
16. Skeevy
17. Skill Set
18. Trail Mix
19. Wannabe
20. Wuss

800-Pound Gorilla

If an elephant in the room is an unavoidably obvious problem that no one wants to pay attention to, an 800-pound gorilla is something so domineeringly vast or imposing that it leaves no room for anything else, and so people can’t help but have to deal with.

Used especially in business contexts, this quirky metaphor began life as the punchline to an old joke: “Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants to.”

Ableism

As a byword for discrimination against people with disabilities (or a bias for able-bodied people), the word ableism might well sound like a contemporary coinage, but we have been recognizing and raising awareness of its issues since the mid-1970s. 

Athleisure

The likes of tracksuits, spandex, and sneakers began to step out of the gym and into everyday fashion in the 1970s, leading to an athleisure trend that has continued to grow ever since. A simple portmanteau of “athlete” and “leisure,” it was first used in a U.S. advertisement for sports shoes in 1976. 

Aviophobia

A fear of flying was first known as aerophobia in the 1960s, before the synonymous aviophobia was coined a decade later in 1976. 

Butterfly Effect

The popular metaphor of the tiny flap of a butterfly’s wings sparking an eventually large-scale chain reaction has been discussed since the early 1970s at least. But both Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary have traced the very earliest written record of the butterfly effect to an article published in the scientific journal Nature in 1976. 

Cool-Down

Strenuous exercise should “end with a cool-down period, which allows the cardiovascular system to return to a resting state,” according to an article in the Los Angeles Times printed on September 2, 1976, that is now cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as the earliest use of this term in its now-common sports and fitness context.

Couch Potato

TV played such a big part in 1970s homelife that this was the era when the couch potato was born. Defined by Merriam-Webster as “a lazy and inactive person, especially one who spends a great deal of time watching television,” etymologically, the term might just allude to the dormancy of potatoes below ground.

But as the Oxford English Dictionary points out, the television set was jokingly known as the “boob tube” in ‘50s and ‘60s America, and so there may also be a punning reference to a “tuber” here, too. 

Digital Camera

It might sound like a quintessential piece of contemporary tech, but the world’s first digital camera (described as “a toaster with a lens”) was developed by Kodak engineer Steve Sasson in 1975, with the term first recorded in print the following year. 

Drum Machine

Another 1970s invention whose name has slipped into general use in our language, the first modern electronically programmable drum machines emerged in the first half of the decade, with Merriam-Webster’s earliest written record of the term dating from 1976.  

Ethernet

Much of the groundwork for the modern internet was developed in the 1960s and 1970s, with the Arpanet first described in 1971, followed by the Ethernet in 1976. To date, the earliest use of the word internet itself that we know about, incidentally, dates from 1974. 

Exit Poll

The earliest record of this election night staple comes from an article in the New York Times dated June 3, 1976. 

French Press

The very first kettle—or pitcher-like devices for brewing loose coffee, which can then be pushed to the bottom of the vessel using a metal plunger—were supposedly developed in France in the mid-1800s. As a result, this style of coffeemaker has come to be known (in North America at least) as a French press, a name first used in 1976.

Meme

Richard Dawkins coined the word meme as “a unit of cultural transmission” in his groundbreaking book exploring gene-centered evolution, The Selfish Gene, in 1976. The word continued to be used in purely genetic contexts until the late 1990s, when it was first applied to a much-shared a much-imitated piece of online media. 

Out-There

As a two-word phrase in its own right, out there has been variously used to mean beyond your usual scope, outside your sphere of influence, or even into the mystical or paranormal world since the 1700s; during World War I, it likewise came to be used by British troops to refer to France, or the lands beyond the Western Front.

An article in the New Yorker in 1976, however, provides the earliest record we know about of out-there being used to mean unconventional or avant-garde.  

Radical

Derived from the Latin word for a plant’s root, radical first emerged in medieval English in its original and literal sense, to refer to anything growing or deriving from a root, and therefore vital or essential to life or survival.

In the 1960s, however, the word fell into use in surfer slang in reference to anything particularly wild or extreme—and from there, in 1976, it was first recorded in U.S. campus-talk in its more general slang sense, meaning excellent, awesome, or first-rate.

Skeevy

“The word ‘skeevie’ [is] used by South Philadelphians to indicate something disgusting,” explained an article in the Philadelphia Magazine in 1976, giving us the earliest written record of this nicely evocative slang coinage.

The same article also explained this word’s origin: skeevy, or skeevie, is apparently derived from a local Tuscan Italian word for disgust. 

Skill Set

If you have a very particular set of skills, then you have a skill set—a term apparently coined by “the father of cognitive psychology,” Ulric Neisser, in 1976. 

Trail Mix

What we now know as “trail mix” was originally known (and to some walkers and hikers, still is known) as gorp in North America, a word thought perhaps to be related to an even earlier regionalism meaning to eat greedily or, according to a popular theory at least, an abbreviation of “good old raisins and peanuts.”

The somewhat less imaginative but now far more familiar name of trail mix debuted some time later, in 1976. 

Wannabe

The Spice Girls might have made it even more well-known two decades later, but the word wannabe was first recorded in a 1976 edition of New York magazine. 

Wuss

No one is entirely sure where the word wuss comes from, but given that it’s a fairly insulting name for a weak or cowardly person, it has at least been suggested to be a blend of wimp and puss. 

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