A patent medicine for nerve exhaustion became the American word for courage.
In 1876, Augustin Thompson of Lowell, Massachusetts, began producing a bitter syrup called "Moxie Nerve Food."1 The product claimed to cure paralysis, softening of the brain, and nervous exhaustion. The name likely came from Abenaki, an Eastern Algonquian language, where similar words appearing in Maine place names mean "dark water."2
By 1885, Thompson had converted the medicine into a carbonated soft drink and received a trademark for the name. Moxie became one of the first mass-produced soft drinks in the United States, outselling Coca-Cola in some years during the 1910s.3 President Calvin Coolidge was a known fan. Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams endorsed it on radio and in print.4
By 1930, the brand name had crossed into common speech as a lowercase noun meaning energy, nerve, and daring courage.5 The earliest known use in this figurative sense appeared in a story by Damon Runyon. Maine designated Moxie the official state soft drink in 2005. The Coca-Cola Company purchased the brand in 2018.6
The path from a patent medicine's brand name to a common English noun took roughly half a century. The word Thompson borrowed from Abenaki place names in Maine now appears in American dictionaries defined as a synonym for spunk and determination.