1862 (Whitman), "hut, shed, shelter," American English slang, popularized among soldiers in the U.S. Civil War, but like much of the soldier's slang (e.g. skedaddle, shoddy), it is of uncertain origin.
Perhaps it is an alteration of shebeen (q.v.), but shebang meaning "tavern," a seemingly necessary transitional sense, is not attested before 1878 and shebeen seems to have been not much used in the U.S. Bartlett's 1877 edition describes shebeen as "A strange word that had its origin during the late civil war. It is applied alike to a room, a shop, or a hut, a tent, a cabin; an engine house."
The phrase the whole shebang is recorded from 1869, but its relation to the earlier use of the word is obscure. Either or both senses also might be mangled pronunciations of French char-à-banc, a bus-like wagon with many seats. For an older guess:
[Shebang] used even yet by students of Yale College and elsewhere to designate their rooms, or a theatrical or other performance in a public hall, has its origin probably in a corruption of the French cabane, a hut, familiar to the troops that came from Louisiana, and constantly used in the Confederate camp for the simple huts, which they built with such alacrity and skill for their winter quarters. The constant intercourse between the outposts soon made the term familiar to the Federal army also. ["Americanisms: The English of the New World," Maximillian Schele De Vere, New York, Charles Scribner & Co., 1872.]
breathy consonant, one uttered with perceptible expulsion of breath, 1862 (apparently coined by William Dwight Whitney), from Latin spirantem (nominative spirans) "breathing," present participle of spirare "to breathe, blow" (see spirit (n.)). OED marks as obsolete spiration (1560s) "action of drawing the breath;" Middle English verb spire "to breathe" also is obsolete.
"growing cellular tissues of plants, actively dividing cell tissue," 1862, formed irregularly from Greek meristos "divided, divisible" (verbal adjective from merizein "to divide, distribute," from meros "a part, a share;" from PIE root *(s)mer- (2) "to get a share of something") + ending from xylem, etc. Related: Meristematic.
in geology, "formed by volcanic agencies," especially in reference to fast-moving, dense, superheated surges of ash, gas and rock in a volcanic eruption; by 1862 in reference to the rocks that result; see pyro- "fire" + clastic, indicating "broken in pieces, fragments."
The word "ash" is not a very good one to include all the mechanical accompaniments of a subaerial or subaqueous eruption, since ash seems to be restricted to a fine powder, the residuum of combustion. A word is wanting to express all such accompaniments, no matter what their size and condition may be, when they are accumulated in such mass as to form beds of "rock." We might call them perhaps "pyroclastic materials," but I have endeavoured in vain to think of an English word which should express this meaning, and believe, therefore, that the only plan will be to retain the word "ash," giving it an enlarged technical meaning, so as to include all the fragments accumulated during an igneous eruption, no matter what size or what shape they may be. [J. Beete Jukes, "The Student's Manual of Geology," Edinburgh, 1862]
1862, short for preparation. Prep school is attested from 1895, short for preparatory school. First record of prep in the college slang sense "student or graduate of a preparatory school, student taking a preparatory course of study" is by 1899 (also see preppie).
"favoring imposed order over freedom," 1862, from authority + -an. Compare authoritative, which originally had this meaning to itself. The noun in the sense of "one advocating or practicing the principle of authority over individual freedom" is from 1859.
