A church key manufactured by a Pennsylvania brewery, c. 1940
10 July 2020
Church key is American slang for a bottle or can opener. Prior to the advent of twist-off bottle caps and pull-tabs on drink cans, a device was needed to open those containers. A typical church key has a round bottle opener at one end and a triangular punch for opening holes in cans, and as such resembles an old-style key, such as those found in churches. Hence the name. Of course, the irony of a church key opening a beer can played into the coining and spread of the term.
While the devices are older, the term dates to at least 1951 when it appears in an article on barroom slang in the American West. The mention is brief, just a definition:
Church key: A bottle opener.
Of course, the fact that the first record of it is in a glossary means that the term was circulating in speech for some time before this.
Sources:
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v., church n.3. https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/dvmfbpi#e5f3nda
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2011, s.v. church key, n.
Wallrich, William J. “Barroom Slang from the Upper Rio Grande.” Western Folklore, 10.2, April 1951, 170, DOI: 10.2307/1497973.
Photo credit: unknown photographer, a. 1977, public domain image.