fix
/fĭks/
intransitive verb
- To correct or set right; adjust. fix a misspelling; fix the out-of-date accounts.
- To restore to proper condition or working order; repair. fix a broken machine.
- To make ready for a specific purpose, as by altering or combining elements; prepare. fixed the room for the guests; fix lunch for the kids.
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It depends on what "it" is,
For example, if "it" is "the date of the next meeting", then "fix it" must mean "don't change it anymore", since the repair meaning doesn't make sense.
On the other hand, if "it" is "a bicycle", then "fix it" must mean "repair it", because nobody wants their bicycle affixed to something.
There is rarely any confusion, unless done deliberately as a joke. When speaking of things that should not move, then "fix" means "prevent from moving". When speaking of things that should move then fix means "repair".
I'm a native English speaker. I cannot bring to mind any example of "fix" having your second meaning. I understand it to mean:
I want to modify/change/repair it
I work as a Software Developer and if I'm fixing something I want to do a complete job; I don't want to create new problems as I fix the existing ones. Hence
I don't want to keep fixing it
so in that sense
I don't want to repair it anymore
is true, but that's because I've fixed it properly!
Fix used in the sense you are referring to dates back to the 18th century:
- Sense of "tamper with" (a fight, a jury, etc.) is from 1790.
probably from the earlier meaning :
- "settle, assign" evolved into "adjust, arrange" (1660s), then "repair".
(Etymonline)
Ad a set phrase the earliest usage I could find is from the '40s, but earlier usages are possible:
From: Collier's, Volume 106 Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, 1940
- ... fifteen dollars on a fight in his life. "Well, here it is," the McCoy tough guy explained. "We're from New York and you're from New York and we seen you're okay. So we're out here for the fight. On business. The fix is in and the white boy wins.
Ngram: fix is in.
A variation of the expression can be found in Bernard Malamud's "The Natural," p. 203 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1952), "The fix is on." The speaker is a not-especially educated man, so the variation is probably deliberate on Malamud's part.