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Sabotage
First used in the early 1900's to describe French railway workers that
were on strike and used to cut the sabot that held railroad tracks in
place.
This is from a site visitor:
I was always taught at school (in England) that this was named after the
clogs, or sabots, that the French rural peasants used to wear. Unhappy
at the loss of their jobs during the mechanisation of agriculture in the
19th century, they would throw their sabots in the thresing machines causing
them to fail. This method of damaging equipment came to be known as sabotage.
Another site visitor emailed this:
Sabotage:From France. A sabot is a type of shoe, made from wood. The worker’s in order to damage the employer’s equipment would throw their shoes into the workings. Thereby committing “sabotage”. I’m sure there is a better description somewhere as well, but I don’t know where the one you currently have came from. Etymology: French, from saboter to clatter with wooden shoes, botch, sabotage, from sabot wooden shoe
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