Learn English – the origin of the phrase “caught red-handed”
phrase-origin
I'm just wondering: why "red"?
Best Answer
On etymonline you will find that it is, presumably, from the blood on hands.
There are other more detailed articles around, quote:
Red-handed doesn't have a mythical origin however - it is a straightforward allusion to having blood on one's hands after the execution of a murder or a poaching session. The term originates, not from Northern Ireland, but from a country not so far from there, socially and geographically, i.e. Scotland. An earlier form of 'red-handed', simply 'red hand', dates back to a usage in the Scottish Acts of Parliament of James I, 1432.
Red-hand appears in print many times in Scottish legal proceedings from the 15th century onward. For example, this piece from Sir George Mackenzie's A discourse upon the laws and customs of Scotland in matters criminal, 1674:
"If he be not taken red-hand the sheriff cannot proceed against him."
No one knows. The expression has existed in many languages for a long time, which suggests that its origin is pretty old.
There are several theories, some based in the similarities in many languages between the words inch and thumb and how you can measure an inch using the thumb, others based on the general usefulness of the thumb to measure different things.
It's entirely possible that it originally had nothing at all to do with the thumb; that it was a similar word that has become distorted over time, then translated to other languages in its distorted form.
British fugitives in the 1800s would rub a herring across their trail, thereby diverting the bloodhounds that were hot in pursuit. In the 1920s, American investment bankers started calling preliminary prospectuses "red herrings" as a warning to investors that the documents were not complete or final and could be misleading.
It originated from a news story by English journalist William Cobbett, c. 1805, in which he claimed that as a boy he used a red herring (a cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a trail; the story served as an extended metaphor for the London press, which had earned Cobbett's ire by publishing false news accounts regarding Napoleon.
Best Answer
On etymonline you will find that it is, presumably, from the blood on hands.
There are other more detailed articles around, quote: