Vetting Vet The origins of vet, verb tr. Where does the expression to vet come from? It's a figurative contraction of veterinarian. The fancy word for animal doctor originated in the mid-17th century. The colloquial abbreviation dates to the 1860s; the verb form of the word, meaning "to treat an animal," came a few decades later—according to the Oxford English Dictionary the earliest known usage is 1891—and was applied primarily in a horse-racing context. ("He vetted the stallion before the race," "you should vet that horse before he races," etc.) By the early 1900s, vet had begun to be used as a synonym for evaluate, especially in the context of searching for flaws.
In practice, the patient cannot tell a vet what its symptoms are. Similarly, when vetting a politician, one is trying to find out information that the 'patient' might not voluntarily reveal. In this respect, it is a very indepth evaluation/examination.
Emmett Redd
Emmett, I've talked about this word many times, but never thought about that aspect of it. Thanks.
i always thought, like many others, that vetting was related to veteran. glad to finally know the truth, but i was also sure that the discussion would lead to the origin of the saying "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." i'm sure many people believe that it's a reference to the trojan horse, as i used to, but it actually refers again to horses and vets. the saying refers to when someone might purchase a horse, they would have a vet check the animal out (or have it "vetted"), and of course one of the first things the vet would do is have a look in the horse's mouth for signs of disease or other health problems. so if you're given a free horse, which would generally be very valuable, you wouldn't want to go looking for problems to detract from the gift itself or cause insult to the giver.
The big reason to look a horse in the mouth is to determine its age. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth means to not determine its age and, therefore, evaluate the quality of the gift--a very ungracious thing to do.
Emmett