The word “date” was coined — inadvertently, it seems — by George Ade, a columnist for the Chicago Record, in 1896. In a column about “working class lives,” he told of a clerk named Artie whose girlfriend was losing interest in him and beginning to see other men socially.

Who created the word date?

1300, from Old French date, from Old Provençal datil, from Latin dactylus, from Greek daktylos date, originally finger, toe. Said to be so called because of fancied resemblance between oblong fruit of the date palm and human digits, but some say it is from the resemblance of the plants leaves to the palm of the