wordaday

Slogan is one of those words we all know because we see slogans, especially during election years, all around us. The AHD defines slogan as:

NOUN:
1. A phrase expressing the aims or nature of an enterprise, organization, or candidate; a motto.

2. A phrase used repeatedly, as in advertising or promotion: “all the slogans and shibboleths coined out of the ideals of the peoples for the uses of imperialism” (Margaret Sanger).

3. A battle cry of a Scottish clan.

That last definition “A battle cry of a Scottish clan” gives a clue to the ancestry and etymology of slogan:
“Alteration of Scots slogorne, battle cry, from Gaelic sluagh-ghairm: sluagh, host; see slew + gairm, shout. “

Slogan comes from Irish Gaelic sluagh, “multitude,” from Old Irish slúag. In Old Irish slúag is used to refer to a “host,” or multitude in the sense of an army, or a hunting party, or a group of fairies.

It seems appropriate that slogan first entered English via the pen of the middle Scots writer Gavin Douglas (1475?–1522), in his translation of the Aeneid: “The slogorne, ensenȝ e, or the wache cry” (Bk. VII. xi. l. 87 OED). Douglas was the first to translate Virgil’s poem into English.

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