The upshot of researching upshot

I carry a notebook, which I mostly use to write down things that occur to me so I don’t forget them. I was scanning back through it the other day and came across a word I had meant to write a post on: upshot.

I don’t remember why it came up, but here’s the Webster’s New World definition: “the conclusion; result; outcome.”

And what I was really curious about, the etymology: “originally, the final shot in an archery match.”

Again, I’d bet the OED would give more information, but I CAN’T CHECK. Argh. (UPDATE: A friend checked the OED for me, there is no more etymology, but it does date the word to 1531.) I found a book on archery in Google Books — Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Saxton Pope — that had a longer explanation. It’s the only thing I could find, so I can’t verify it, but I’ll share it with that caveat:

In ancient times when archery was practiced in open fields and shooting at butts or clouts, men walked between their distances much as golfers do today, and having completed their course, it was often customary to shoot a return round over the same field. This was called the upshot, and has descended into common parlance, just as many other phrases have which had their origin in the use of the bow and arrow.