bitchy

Etymology

It is formed from English bitch + -y.^[2][3][4][5] Bitch is from Old English bicce (“female dog”),^[4] which Etymonline takes as probably from Old Norse.^[4] The OED compares Old Norse bikkja, Faroese bikkja and similar words in Swedish and Danish, all meaning bitch and all of unknown origin.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a male dog, looking like a bitch: 1907, in the magazine Outing,^[2] and earlier, in 1906, Etymonline quotes The Dog Book on terriers called "bitchy" in face.^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1891 for its first sense.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The sense "spiteful, catty", the usual one today, is recorded from 1908, in a letter of Virginia Woolf,^[2] although Etymonline and Green's Dictionary of Slang date it only to the 1930s.^[4][7] The sense "sexually provocative" appears in American slang about 1925,^[7][4] or in 1928 in Huxley's Point Counter Point according to the OED, which calls it now rare.^[2] Etymonline notes that the spiteful sense was usually applied to women.^[4]

Timeline

• 1907 – of a male dog, resembling a bitch.^[2]
• 1908 – spiteful, catty, in Virginia Woolf.^[2] Green's Dictionary of Slang first finds it in 1935.^[7]
• c. 1925 – sexually provocative (now rare), in American slang.^[7][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (informal) Spiteful or malicious, especially in remarks about others; catty: She made a bitchy comment about his new haircut.^[8][6][2]
2. Of a male dog, looking or behaving like a female.^[6][2]

Word family

• bitchily
• bitchiness

Related words

• bitch

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins