Baseball

The term "rain check" originated in the 1880s in reference to the sport of baseball. If a baseball game was postponed or ended early due to bad weather, a ticket holders was given a new ticket, stamped with the word “RAIN CHECK”, that entitled them to admission for a future game. The practice of giving a rain check to a ticketholder was formalized in 1890 in the constitution of the National Baseball League. By the early 1900s the term was transferred to tickets for other kinds of entertainment, and later to a coupon entitling a customer to buy, at a later date and at the same price, a sale item temporarily out of stock.