To 86 someone is to bar them off your property. One of the many oddball terms that has crept into the English language in the past century is a peculiarly inexplicable one: the verbal shortform of '86' to mean 'to dismiss or quash,' 'to bar entry or further service to,' and even 'to kill.' While its uses have come to be widespread (one can say that the bank 86'd your scheme to have it underwrite the start-up costs of your business venture, or that a friend who made a spectacle of himself in a bar was 86'd from the place, or that a Mob boss had a particularly troublesome competitor 86'd), the origin of this now omnibus term remains obscure:Įxample: