Discussion Groups / British English / May 2004

That's one possible derivation. Another theory is that a "boilerplate" was a
sheet of metal of standard size used to make or repair boilers. Got a hole
in your boiler? Weld a boilerplate over it. (It's worth remembering that
derivations of phrases and sayings are often subject to debate, and nobody
really knows the correct answer.)

"Boilerplate" is not just used in legal circles. If you write an e-mail to
some technical support service and you get a standard response back that
tells you to check this and try that -- even though you did exactly that
before you sent the mail, because you're not stupid -- that's a "boilerplate
response". The person at the other end has just taken a quick look at the
subject header and chosen a standard "boilerplate" reply that seems roughly
to fit.

Not quite. In days yonder, newspapers were printed with moveable type
but things like adverts were provided to the papers on a single solid
plate which contained the whole advert. These plates had mounting holes
at a specific spacing along the edges which resembled the removable
plates that were bolted onto boilers to allow access for servicing. They
became known as boilerplates. In time, the phrase came to mean any part
of the paper for which the editor could not alter.

Later, lawyers cottoned onto the phrase to mean something that didn't
/need/ to be changed.

Fairly confident that this is the correct origin.

I just wanted to write and thank you for
explaining the origin of the
word "boilerplate"  (legal and other fine print).

Recently I was reading the follwoing book and it
confidently gave the origin of "OK" as
"abbreiviation of "oll korrect", a jocular misspelling
of "all correct".

(This etymology is from a dictionary. 10 years ago
dictionaries listed competing theories.)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0395959209/103-8359194-1531850?v=glance

The World in So Many Words : A Country-by-Country Tour
of Words That Have Shaped Our Language
by Allan Metcalf (Author)