The term means that each person pays their own part of a bill. Goradio.com writes that the origin was from a feud between England and the Netherlands, and the English used “Dutch” in several phrases that had negative connotations. Examples were “Dutch courage” (meaning cowardice or someone gaining courage by getting drunk) and “Dutch treat” (which indicated that someone was too stingy to give a treat). “Going Dutch” therefore originally indicated that someone was too miserly to pay for someone else’s meal or other things in an evening out.