Did You Know?

Pungle is from the Spanish word pongale, meaning "put it down," which itself is from poner, meaning "to put" or "to place," or more specifically "to contribute money." The earliest uses of "pungle" are from the 1850s and are in reference to anteing up in games of chance. It did not take long for the word to be used in other contexts. It was in Huckleberry Finn's deadbeat dad's vocabulary: "I'll make [Judge Thatcher] pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why," Huck quotes his father in Mark Twain's famous novel. Nowadays, "pungle" is mainly used in the western part of the United States.