"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 08/08/17 (to peter out, as in to slowly fail or run out)

Today I am answering an e-mail from Simin Green in Sheffield. He says, "Can you provide the ethymology of the phrase "to peter out, as in to slowly fail or run out"? Who was Peter and why did he falter?" Good question. I should start by saying that the precise origin of petering out is a bit of mystery, but that doesn't mean that we can't have fun trying to find out. We know that the earliest uses are found in 19th-century American slang. Miners used it first of all to describe dwindling reserves of precious ores. And that by itself suggests a link with saltpetre or potassium nitrate, which was a constituent of the explosives that were very often used in mines. But there are other ethymologists who are sort of digging around in the history of our language who believe that the explanation is actually theological. And they point to St Peter and to his legendary weakening of fasith that led to his denial, or in fact denials - three times, before the cock crows - of Peter denying Jesus before the crucifixion, which would possibly make sense, although the evidence doesn't quite fit. But there is a third contender to the claim, if you like, of being the origin of petering out, and this one, to me, make much more sense, and that's namely the French verb peter, which meant to break wind - it still does mean to break wind. Now, that's a term that's also behind the phrase that you'll find in Shakespeare - "hoisted by his own petard". And a petard, the idea of wind, was actually again an explosive. It was a small bomb. It was used for making holes in fortifications. It was used by all military forces in 16th-century Europe and before then. So, it's a small bomb, in other words, which again goes back to that breaking wind idea. And... "peter (fr)", that verb, is also behind partridge, on account of the noise the partridge's wings makes when it takes flight. Apparently, it sounds like breaking wind. But goin back to petering out, the idea of something fizzling, if you like, and slowly dwindling, it does make quite a lot of sense, and I should just say that to fizzle has a breakikg wind at its heart. To fizzle meant to breaking wind quietly. That's the very first definition that you'll find in the Oxford English Dictionary. So, whoever said ethymology was boring? Not me.