Spick and Span

The full original phrase was "spick and span new," and it's built from two old words for newness stacked together for emphasis. "Span-new" came from Old Norse spann-nyr, roughly "new as a freshly cut chip of wood," and was already in English by around 1300. "Spick" was added later, likely echoing a similar Dutch or Flemish phrase, spiksplinternieuw, meaning "spike-splinter- new." A popular story claims the phrase specifically describes a newly built sailing ship, with shiny unused nails ("spikes") and fresh wood shavings ("span," as in wood chips) still lying about. It's a satisfying nautical image, but the Oxford English Dictionary finds no real evidence connecting the phrase to shipbuilding, and none of the earliest examples mention ships at all.