Etymology

dueling banjos

Today it means: A contest of skill in which two people try to top each other's offerings, especially one involving musical ability. Full definition →

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The story

From a scene in the 1972 film Deliverance in which a tourist with a guitar gets into a picking contest with a hillbilly on a banjo, both playing parts of the song "Dueling Banjos" (originally titled "Feuding Banjos") by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.