Well attestedNamed from the place
Mexican standoff
noun · first attested 1870s
The three-way gunfight everyone pictures is a hundred years younger than the phrase.
A confrontation that no party can win and none can safely leave.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1870s
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Mexico
- In English
Mexican standoff
The expression appears in American English by about 1876, one of many nineteenth-century Americanisms using Mexican to mean inferior or makeshift, as in Mexican overdrive. The three-cornered gun standoff it now describes came from spaghetti westerns and especially from the 1990s and Reservoir Dogs. Earlier writers called that a three-cornered or triangular standoff.
Also pinned to Mexico
3 more from the same place
Mexico
All 13 entries 9 more words from Mexico
jalapeñoThe pepper is named for Xalapa in Veracruz.XalapatabascoThe sauce is named for a Mexican state.TabascotequilaThe spirit is a town in Jalisco.TequilaChihuahuaThe smallest dog is named for the largest Mexican state.ChihuahuaJuarezA border city named for a president lends its name onward.Ciudad JuarezOaxacaThe stretched-curd cheese is named for a southern Mexican state.OaxacaTabasco sauceThe sauce is named for a Mexican state.TabascocosaliteIts exact composition resisted settlement for over a century because lead and bismuth are almost indistinguishable to X-rays.Cosalá