President Donald Trump claimed in a recent interview that he "came up with" the phrase "prime the pump."

In an interview with The Economist published Thursday, Trump said he would be fine with his proposed tax cuts increasing the deficit in the short term because they would stimulate growth, a strategy he described as "priming the pump."

"It is OK, because it won't increase it for long," Trump said. "You may have two years where you'll … you understand the expression 'prime the pump'?"

Trump then went on to tell the Economist interviewer that he "came up with" the phrase.

"Have you heard that expression used before?" Trump asked The Economist. "Because I haven't heard it. I mean, I just … I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It's what you have to do."

"Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out," Trump continued.

Trump, however, was far from the first to use the phrase.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary pointed out on Twitter that the phrase had existed since the early 1800s and had been used by the government for 84 years.

"'Pump priming' has been used to refer to government investment expenditures since at least 1933," the dictionary's Twitter account said.

Analysts have questioned whether Trump's proposed tax cuts would cause the type of growth increase Trump has suggested — whether it would, in fact, prime the pump.