I'm 99% sure that it originated in climbing - it's been a term since the 80s at least (short for ascend - to 'send' a climbing route is to climb it successfully without falling or weighting the rope). Outside climbing I first noticed its use in the mid/late '00s in mountain biking (which has a fair bit of overlapping user base), and then in other extreme sports. In the jump from climbing to other extreme sports it became a shorthand for 'commit and do something difficult/risky successfully' (similar in spirit to its meaning in climbing if not literally given the etymology).
I think it has to be mountain biking. It's the perfect thought to have in your head when you're looking at something that is potentially crazy, but you know the laws of physics are almost certainly going to have your back as long as your technique is good.
First time I heard it I was near the bottom of the UC Santa Cruz trails into Highway 9 contemplating this section called "the poop chute" which gets steeper and rockier until you hit a 2-3 foot drop among boulders and the only solution is to have enough speed that you end up in the road. And by "the road" I mean the apex of a blind hairpin turn of Highway 9.
I had been out of the sport for 20 years but kept riding road and my buddy got me back in with a sweet deal on a YT Jeffsy we kitted up with spare parts from all his friends. Carbon everything. A bike that did not exist in any dimension when I stopped riding.
Well, this was probably my seventh or eighth weekend trying to negotiate this chute and there are these 17-20 year old kids at the top and I ask them how to do this. And this guy, with all the confidence of Santa Cruz and youth says, with a big, easy grin, "Yeah, it's just hang way back and full send." And I looked at him. And I looked at the chute. And back at him. And my brain, married with two kids, was like "I see. Ok." And I did it.
Full send. Was exactly what my brain needed to think. It works weirdly well.
That's well and good, but the term comes from climbing. To ascend. You send a route. Skiiers and eventually mountain bikers started to use it as well. I think it's just a ubiquitous extreme sports term at this point.
in climbing "send" is used in other forms... sending temps = cold enough for the rubber to stick well, usually below 50°F. getting sendy = eager, anxious to climb. sending shoes = aggressive pair of climbing shoes with downturned toes.
"[I'm still going to|You know I'm just gonna] Send it" originated with Larry (the) Enticer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzOUgwsQ_hM I'm pretty sure "full send" evolved out of this. He's a brilliant nut job. :)
The proximal cause for a lot of people is military in origin ("send it" as slang for "fire", especially in a pseudo sniper context), and military usage probably derives from crossover with extreme sports community. "Military in origin" at this point also encompasses secondary media like COD.
Full send comes from extreme sports-style events originally, basically meaning "go 100% with no fear of the repercussions". In racing, it usually means going into a corner so fast you're basically risking or guaranteeing you won't make the turn safely.
> Nelk is known for popularizing and later trademarking the slang term "Full Send" (stylized as FULL SEND) which Forgeard defined as meaning "any activity you do, give it your absolute best".
A point of note: the phrase was popular in the climbing/skiing/snowboarding/mountain biking communities years and years before the frat boys appropriated it for activities mostly pertaining to drinking a lot and being a degenerate.
Full Send predates them by at least a decade. It’s a very short walk from “send it”, as in I’m going to send it, which has been part of that culture since at least 2000.
This term was used well before 2010... that person might have the trademark but it was used in extreme sports (e.g. skateboarding type events) since the 1990s.
To add to the other replies, there's two etymologies that I know of.
The first and most common explanation, is that when a film crew working with an extreme sports athlete would successfully capture a moment on film, they would mail the tape in to the film editor or marketing department - literally send the tape. So when they were doing lots of takes, before rolling the cameras everyone would encourage each other to "send it this time".
(The term "beta" referring to detailed description of a location or technique, came about similarly, as it refers to passing around a literal Betamax tape of another person performing that stunt or rock climb)
The alternate explanation is that it is simply short for "ascend", as in exhorting a rock climber to "ascend it".
"Send it" has been in use in sports for awhile, and the usage is literal: cause the thing to go, and from that point it's between physics and whatever god(s) you pray to. Typically used for the act of passing/shooting.
"Full <thing> mode" has also been in use for awhile, meaning an extreme or complete version of a tactic or state of being.
Combine the two, and you get "full send mode", where you make a move that completely removes your control from that point forward.
Then you drop the last word for brevity, and you have people going full send.
It was one of those things that after hearing it, it just made sense. I probably heard it elsewhere before that, but I just always remember Larry Enticer cementing it. (I'm not sure about the date on that video. I remember seeing it a long time ago.)
It was used sporadically in sports contexts, usually the kind of sports where you go flying and get injured if you F-up (skiing, skateboarding, etc). It gained mainstream popularity when a dude with a snowmobile used the phrase in a viral video in the 2010s.
I think I heard it from the Sky F1 commentators first. It’s making its way through the rest of Motorsport from there I’d guess. Netflix’s Drive to Survive series has had a really profound effect on Formula 1 in the US.
How did the term "full send" come about? Why is everyone saying it these days?