Named after the character Miss Malaprop in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals, a malapropism is any well-intended saying that takes on a different and often ludicrous meaning when a similar yet utterly inappropriate word is used. To wit: ‘He is the very pineapple of politeness.’
Lynch law (lynching) is a term describing the rough-and-ready administration of justice by a mob in cases where the law is inadequate or dilatory (nowadays popularly meaning the execution of a supposed criminal). The term originates from the practice of Charles Lynch, a farmer in Virginia, USA who during the later part of the 18th century supported revolutionary principles in the district where he lived by catching ‘Tories’ and infamous people, whom he then hanged by their thumbs until they cried out ‘Liberty for All’.
Most people think of it as a proper word relating to an army styled vehicle.
In fact it does have a meaning “Just Engine and Essential Parts”. Therefore is more of an abbreviation adopted as a word.
In the horse and buggy days the dirt roads would get worn with ruts from the wagon wheels.
Once you got your wagon wheels into these ruts it was very hard to get them out, you had to follow the same old path.
Thomas Carlyle (1839): Essay on Chartism – “Parliaments, lumbering along in their deep ruts of commonplace.”
T. Hall (1660): Funebria Flore. – “If you throw enough dirt against the wall, some of it is bound to stick.”