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Zig-zag
Meaning
A series of short straight lines, set at angles to one another and connected to form a continuous line. Often forming a regular pattern, but not necessarily so. Also, the action of moving along such a course.
Origin
This term seems to have come into English from France, or possibly Germany. The origin is unknown. The reduplication is suggestive of alternation, as with other phrases of that sort, e.g. tick-tock and see-saw.
In 1712, John James published a translation of the French gardening writer Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond's Theory and practice of gardening. In that is included:
"Steps of Grass laid in Zic-Zac" and "Chevrons, or Checks of Grass in Zig-Zac."
James added the note - "The French call this an Allée en Zic-Zac, for its Likeness to a Machine so called". What machine he meant we don't know.
The German word 'zickzack' dates from around the same time and is known (in Sperander) from 1727. That usage referred to the fortifications of castles, the walls of which were sometimes built in zig-zag form.
Zic-zac/zick-zack soon began to be written as zig-zag. The first record we have of that is in Johnathan Swift's prose poem My Lady's Lamentation, 1728:
How proudly he talks
Of zigzags and walks
It didn't take long for the term to begin to be used in a figurative sense, i.e. in reference to any continual changes. For example, in William Cowper's Conversation, 1781:
"Though such continual zig-zags in a book, Such drunken reelings, have an awkward look."
See also - other reduplicated phrases.