As thousands of fathers, sons and brothers lay dead or wounded on the Gallipoli Peninsula, the newly coined word spontaneously became a sort of shorthand for sacrifice, courage and mateship.

But within months of the Gallipoli landing, businesses in Australia and New Zealand jumped on the bandwagon, rushing to rebrand goods and services to cash in on the patriotic fervour.

Ordinary citizens joined the rush, naming their homes, pet dogs and boats in honour of the word that bestowed a kind of international identity on a brand new country.

The federal government moved quickly to stop what it saw as the spirit of Anzac being traduced.

Now a new book, by University of NSW senior law lecturer Catherine Bond, traces how legislation guarded the acronym that waded ashore at Anzac Cove in World War I and became a sort of secular holy word.

Initially, Anzac legislation aimed to stop the word being registered as a trademark or being used in business but by November 1916 regulations were introduced to ban its use for homes, boats, vehicles and charitable institutions.

Bond says returned soldiers also sought permission to name their baby boys Anzac - prompting a dry response from then solicitor-general Robert Garran, "there is no legal objection to the use of the word 'Anzac' in the naming of children".

Australia had also successfully campaigned the New Zealand and British governments to introduce similar bans, Bond says in her book Anzac: The Landing, the Legend, the Law.

"The Hughes government introduced the Protection of Word Anzac Regulations 1921 ... those restrictions remain today, in amended and expanded form - the only World War I-related regulations still in force in Australia."

Of course biscuits can be named Anzacs, as long as they stick to the original recipe and aren't described as cookies, an Americanism.

But other commercial uses of the word Anzac are heavily regulated and unless permission is given by the Department of Veterans' Affairs, to use Anzac in a title - even if for private use, such as the name of a home - remains illegal.

Penalties for misusing the word are surprising harsh in an era when many shibboleths have gone missing in action. Jail awaits anybody who seriously breaches the act. Instead of imprisonment, the Crimes Act 1914 provides a penalty of up to $10,200 for a person and $51,000 for a body corporate.

Anzac has become perhaps the most Australian word of all. But where did the acronym come from? The British claimed responsibility but there are many other claimants.

War historian (and former Herald journalist) Charles Bean edited The Anzac Book published in 1916. The commander of the Australians and New Zealanders at the Gallipoli landing, Lieutenant-General Sir William R. Birdwood, wrote in the introduction: "When I took command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in Egypt a year ago, I was asked to select a telegraphic code address for my Army Corps, and then adopted the word 'Anzac'. Later on, when we had effected our landing here in April last, I was asked by General Headquarters to suggest a name for the beach where we had made good our first precarious footing, and then asked that this might be recorded as 'Anzac Cove' - a name which the bravery of our men has now made historical, while it remains a geographical landmark for all time."

Later that same year, a diary and sketchbook by artist and signaller Ellis Silas??? who went ashore at Anzac Cove contained a foreword by the commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during the Gallipoli Campaign, General Sir Ian Hamilton. He wrote modestly: "As the man who, first seeking to save himself the trouble, omitted the five full stops and brazenly coined the word 'Anzac', I am glad to write a line or two in preface to sketches which may help to give currency to that token throughout the realms of glory."

In his 1936 history volume, Bean attributed the word to another Englishman. "One day early in 1915 Major C. M. Wagstaff, then junior member of the 'operations' section of Birdwood's staff, walked into the General Staff office and mentioned to the clerks that a convenient word was wanted as a code name for the Corps. The clerks had noticed the big initials on the cases outside their room ??? A. & N. Z. A. C.; and a rubber stamp for registering correspondence had also been cut with the same initials. When Wagstaff mentioned the need of a code word, one of the clerks (according to most accounts Lieutenant A. T. White ...) suggested: 'How about ANZAC?' Major Wagstaff proposed the word to the general, who approved of it, and 'Anzac' thereupon became the code name of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. It was, however, some time before the code word came into general use, and at the Landing many men in the divisions had not yet heard of it."

Then, in 1965, British historian and former Tory MP Robert Rhodes James echoed Bean. He revealed also the contribution of the boys from Oz: "Two Australian sergeants, Little and Millington, had cut a rubber stamp, with the initials A. & N. Z. A. C. at Corps headquarters, situated in Shepheard's??? Hotel, Cairo ... When a code name was required for the Corps, a British officer, a Lt. White, suggested 'Anzac'. Little later claimed that he made the original suggestion to White. It was in general use by January 1915."

Down the years Anzac has been used sparingly. Sydney's Anzac Parade and Anzac Bridge aside, few streets, water courses, parks and gardens take the word.

(However a town in Alberta, Canada, carries the title: locals say it honours some Australians and New Zealanders who helped build a railway in 1917 but some North Americans claimed it was a local word meaning "warrior" when answering Australian objections).

Australian authority proved fearless in pursuing those who broke the law. While songs, such as the JC Williamson's 1917 pantomime The House that Jack Built, usually were granted permission to publish, Bond's book carries a photograph of an August 1916 Sydney police report showing lists of local businesses - boarding houses, restaurants, hairdressers, clothing - that had dared to sport the word Anzac on shingles.

Melbourne photographer James Armstrong's Anzac Art Photo Enlargement Co in High Street, Northcote, was the first to be charged under the War Precautions Supplementary Regulations. Convicted and fined 10 shillings ($1) in October 1916, he appealed saying he named the store to honour his brother, a serving soldier. Garran was unmoved.

Authority was equally hard on four-legged patriots.

In August 1917, a poster spruiking a performance in Albury, NSW attracted ire. It advertised a performance of "The Anzac GollywogCo, featuring Dog Anzac ... who has seen 858 days active service".

Dog owner Hector Walker told police he had taken the dog to Gallipoli and France. But by the time the Crown solicitor moved against him Walker fled across the Murray to sanctuary in Melbourne. Due to jurisdiction problems the the prosecution discontinued.

In 1934 one of Australia's favourite sons, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, painted the word Anzac on a plane he intended to fly in the Centenary Race celebrating 100 years of European settlement in Victoria.

Smithy had served at Gallipoli, and was a great and heroic commercial brand at the height of the Depression. However the powers refused permission and he renamed the plane Lady Southern Cross.

As corporate sponsorship moved into every aspect of Australian life, the federal government bowed to the inevitable in the 21st century and handed over Anzac to big business - with strict provisos, of course.

But the rush to commercialise Anzac was not without some crass moments. Perhaps the most grating was Woolworths cloth-eared "Fresh in Our Memories" campaign in 2015.

The supermarket giant was attempting to associate its "Fresh Food People" logo with "Lest We Forget" but abandoned the campaign amid widespread outrage. Woolworths did not even seek permission to drum up business banging the patriot drum.

"They did not have permission," said the then minister for veterans' affairs Michael Ronaldson???. "Under the Protection of the Word Anzac Act, I've got to authorise the use of the word Anzac, and I did not provide it for those looking for purely commercial benefit."

The same year, Zoo Weekly, the now defunct voyeur magazine, ran an "Anzac Centenary" issue featuring "100 things every Aussie should know about Gallipoli" and bikini models holding poppies. Veterans' Affairs moved in. Online advertisements were pulled but the publicity did not hurt store sales.

In the Anzac centenary year, the Camp Gallipoli foundation pledged to support veterans and their families through the Returned and Services League and Legacy. But approval to use the word Anzac was partially withdrawn after it put it on beer holders, hoodies and wool caps. Camp Gallipoli subsequently lost all use of the word after the organistion was stripped of its charitable status.

Anzac Day has become a rite of passage for some recently, but since since 1915 patriotic fervour has waxed and waned.

For instance, stark were the differences between last year's $552 million centenary commemoration of the Anzac landings and World War I, and the jubilee celebrations.

In 1965 there were no applications by business or individuals to mark the jubilee, although the Postmaster-General issued special stamps featuring Simpson and his donkey.

Bond notes that Canberra paid for 71 men who landed on April 25, 1915, to return to Gallipoli but quotes a report from noted historian Ken Inglis that only 100 people met them, including "four hitchhikers in parkas and jeans ... a bearded young man wearing a straw hat turned up at one side, Digger-style".