Souped up

[fredpuli47]

What's the origin of 'souped up' as in ' it was a souped up Ford' meaning a Ford which had been modified to make the engine more powerful ?

[york310]

I think it's probably not soup and is actually from made super. Possibly shortened version of superfied.

[Quizmonster]

As York's answer above suggests, it's based on supercharged and is, therefore, just an abbreviation.

[fredpuli47]

So it was originally meant to be 'suped' but it has come to be written as 'souped', so much so that I, for one, have never seen it spelled any other way !

[Quizmonster]

The verb, 'to supe', has been around since the early 19th century, but only in the meaning of acting as a supernumerary player in the theatre, so it, too, is just an abbreviation. As you say, I have never seen souped, as in 'souped up', spelt without an 'o', Fred.
However, a century ago, one of the slang meanings of the noun, soup, was anything injected into a horse with a view to boosting its speed...a process rather similar to supercharging an engine. In a sense, therefore, there may not be that much difference between souped and suped!

[scotman]

Further to QM's reply
Cassell's Slang Dict gives the horseracing history and also references this to uses of the noun 'soup' as meaning [1] gelignite or nitroglycerine or [2] petrol

[fredpuli47]

Nowadays, in Newmarket, we prefer not to inject a horse for speed. We prefer to 'accidentally' give it Mars bars, or Snickers, as they are now known. I don't know of a slang term for that. Snickering suggests itself . After all, 'to snicker' means 'to neigh', and a snickering horse is only natural..We'll tell that to the Stewards !

A few years ago, an Irish trainer's gelding was disqualified when its blood test showed nicotine. It won next time out, prompting Mr Mullins, the trainer, to observe ' I knew he'd be a fine fellow once we got him off the fags ! '

Thanks QM and scotman. Informative as always.