It might make sense to think that the phrase “winging it” — which is defined as “doing or trying something without much practice and preparation” — relates to birds or planes. But in reality, it’s a term that was coined by thespians and stagehands of the late 19th century.
Recorded mentions of “wing” as a verb (in this context) date back to the 1880s, when it appeared in a theater periodical called Stage magazine: “‘To wing’.. indicates the capacity to play a rôle without knowing the text.” The writer further specified that it has to do with a performer receiving help from a prompter located off to the side of the stage — an area hidden from the audience and known as the wing of the stage. (“Waiting in the wings” refers to performers in preparation to enter the stage.)
“To wing” gave rise to the idiom “winging it,” which first appeared in a 1933 text, Back-stage: a survey of the contemporary English theatre from behind the scenes. “He must give a performance by ‘winging it’ — that is, by refreshing his memory for each scene in the wings before he goes on to play it,” author Philip Godfrey wrote. In other words, if an unprepared actor hadn’t memorized their lines, they would hide in the wings and quickly go over the next scene before returning to the stage and trying their best.
As the decades went on, the term was adopted by those outside of the theatrical world, ignoring the idiom’s direct correlation with the wings of a stage. The phrase is now used far more commonly in nontheatrical contexts than in a theatrical one.
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