faggot

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fagot, also fagald and faggald,^[2][1] borrowed from Anglo-Norman faget, in Anglo-Norman and Old French also fagot (“bundle of sticks”),^[3][4] recorded in French from the 12th century.^[3] The Anglo-Norman word is found from about 1270 for a bundle of firewood or of sticks for filling ditches.^[4] The OED calls the French word of unknown origin and compares Medieval Latin fagotus and Italian fagotto;^[3] Hoad and the Canadian Oxford say it is of uncertain origin.^[5][6] Etymonline thinks it probably comes from the Italian word, a diminutive of Vulgar Latin *facus, from Latin fascis (“bundle of wood”), the source of fasces,^[2] while Oxford's dictionaries base the Italian word on Ancient Greek φάκελος (phákelos, “bundle”),^[7][8][9] which Etymonline calls probably Pre-Greek.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary routes it through Old Provençal and calls the Vulgar Latin and Greek steps possible.^[10] The derogatory use for a gay man is, according to most dictionaries, probably the same word, through an earlier contemptuous use for a woman;^{[2][11][12][8][13]} the American Heritage Dictionary says only "perhaps".^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bundle of sticks or twigs tied together as fuel: about 1312, where the English word appears in a Latin inventory of northern England.^[3][14] Etymonline dates the word to the late 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Faggots were the fuel for burning heretics, recorded before 1425 in Mandeville's Travels,^[3][14] and the phrase fire and faggot came to stand for that punishment;^[2] from 1570 heretics who had recanted wore an embroidered figure of a faggot on the sleeve.^[3][2] The word widened to bundles of herbs or flowers (1447), of iron rods for welding (1540) and, figuratively, a group of people or things lumped together (1548).^[3] From 1689 a faggot was a man hired to fill out the ranks at a muster of soldiers.^[3][15][2] From 1817 it was also a vote created for party purposes.^[2] The British dish of chopped liver and offal rolled into balls is recorded from 1815,^[3] or 1851 in Etymonline, which takes it as the same word, from bits and pieces bound together.^[2][8]

As a term of abuse for a woman, especially an old or troublesome one, the word is dated to the 1590s by Etymonline and Dictionary.com,^[2][12] and to 1722 by the OED, which labels it Irish, Scottish and regional.^[3] Etymonline explains it as a bundle of sticks seen as an awkward load, comparing baggage "worthless woman", also of the 1590s,^[2][15] and Green's Dictionary of Slang thinks this the most likely source of the later sense.^[15] The English Dialect Dictionary records it in Scotland for a slattern,^[16] and in Ireland it still means a dirty, untidy woman.^[17][6] The offensive sense "male homosexual" appears in American slang in 1914,^[2][11][18] probably transferred from the abusive term for a woman,^[2][11][19] perhaps reinforced by Yiddish פֿייגעלע (faygele, “little bird”)^[2][1][15] or by the British public-school fag, a junior boy who served a senior.^[2][15] The short form fag dates from the 1920s.^[8] Etymonline and Green's Dictionary of Slang reject the popular story that gay men were called faggots because they were burned at the stake: in England the law of 1533 prescribed hanging, and the old link with executions had long been forgotten by the time the American slang arose.^[2][15]

Timeline

• c. 1312 – a bundle of sticks for fuel.^[3]
• 1408 – a bundle of brushwood used in building or military works.^[3]
• before 1425 – a faggot used in burning heretics.^[3]
• 1447 – a bundle of herbs or other things.^[3]
• 1543 – verb, to burn a heretic (now obsolete).^[3]
• 1570 – the figure of a faggot worn by a recanted heretic.^[3]
• 1582 – verb, to bind sticks into faggots.^[3]
• 1590s – a contemptuous term for a woman.^[2][12]
• 1689 – a dummy soldier hired for a muster.^[3]
• 1702 – a strip of candied orange or lemon peel (obsolete by 1861).^[3]
• 1815 – a ball of chopped meat and offal.^[3]
• 1883 – verb, to decorate with faggot stitch.^[3]
• 1914 – a male homosexual, in American slang (offensive).^[2][11][18]

Meanings

Noun

1. (offensive, slang) A disparaging term for a gay man.^{[20][11][6][13]}
2. A bundle of sticks or twigs tied together, especially for use as fuel.^[13][3][6]
3. A bundle of iron or steel rods heated and welded together.^[13][3][6]
4. (British) A ball of chopped meat, especially pig's liver, mixed with bread and herbs and baked or fried: faggots and peas.^[13][3]
5. A bundle of anything, such as a bunch of herbs.^[13][3][6]
6. (British, derogatory) An unpleasant or slovenly woman.^[6][3][17]

Verb

1. To bind sticks or other things into a bundle.^[13][3]
2. To decorate or join cloth with faggoting.^[13][3]

Word family

• faggotry
• faggoty
• fag
• faggoting

Related words

• fagot
• baggage
• fasces

Usage notes

The sense "gay man" is offensive.^[6][20][11] Wilton notes that gay men have partly reclaimed the word and use it among themselves, sometimes in a positive way.^[14] In American English the bundle of sticks is often spelled fagot.^[13][6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barber, Katherine, ed. (2004), The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Toronto: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c Wilton, Dave, Wordorigins.org, wordorigins.org, p. "Faggot", 23 September 2020
15. ^ a b c d e f Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b Dolan, Terence Patrick (2004), A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English, 2nd ed., Dublin: Gill & Macmillan
18. ^ a b Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
19. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
20. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin