fuck

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fʌk/^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is not known for certain.^[2][3] It first appears in a coded line of the poem “Flen flyys”, written in mixed Latin and English before 1500, where the cipher “gxddbov” stands for “fuccant”, a mock-Latin “they fuck”.^[4][5] Merriam-Webster compares Dutch fokken (“to breed (cattle)”) and Swedish dialectal fokka (“to copulate”),^[6] and calls it Germanic, akin to Middle Dutch fokken (“to push, thrust, copulate”).^[7] Liberman places it among many Germanic verbs with roots such as fik-, fak-, fuk- and fok- whose basic meaning is “to move back and forth”, often also “to cheat”, among them German ficken.^[8] He concludes that the English verb was most probably borrowed from Low German rather than a native word going back to Old English, and that it has no cognates outside Germanic.^[8] He and Green both reject a link with Latin pugnāre (“to fight, strike”), which Partridge had suggested.^[8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To copulate: about 1503 according to the OED, in the form fukkit,^[5][9] while Green's first printed example is from William Dunbar in 1508.^[3] The spelling fuck appears in 1535 in Sir David Lyndsay's Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits.^[5] Etymonline mentions a possible use in an English court record of 1310 and the surname John le Fucker from 1278, which may have other explanations.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word was taboo from the first: its earliest appearance is in code.^[4] John Florio listed it in his dictionary of 1598,^[3][10] but it has been treated as a slang or taboo term since about 1690,^[3] Johnson left it out, and no English dictionary included it between 1795 and 1965;^[5] the original OED also omitted it.^[5] In the 18th century it was usually printed as f––k.^[3] It returned to literature in Joyce's Ulysses (1922),^[3] and the Penguin dictionary printed it in 1965, followed by the American Heritage Dictionary in 1969.^[5] The noun, “an act of copulation”, is found from 1663^[7][11] or 1680,^[9] and “a person considered as a sexual partner” from 1874.^[9][5] Profane use in curses dates from 1922, not give a fuck and “to blunder” from 1929,^[9] fuck-up from 1958 and fuck-all from 1960.^[9] Fucking as a mere intensive is first recorded about 1568.^[9]

Timeline

• before 1500 – coded fuccant (“Flen flyys”).^[4]
• c. 1503 – fukkit, to copulate.^[9]
• 1508 – first printed use (Dunbar).^[3]
• 1535 – the spelling fuck (Lyndsay).^[5]
• c. 1568 – fucking.^[9]
• 1598 – in Florio's dictionary.^[3]
• 1663 – noun, an act of copulation.^[7]
• 1874 – a person as a sexual partner.^[9]
• 1922 – in curses, and in Ulysses.^[9][3]
• 1929 – not give a fuck, and “to blunder”.^[9]
• 1960 – fuck-all.^[9]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. (coarse slang) To have sexual intercourse (with).
2. (coarse slang) To treat unfairly; to victimize.
3. (coarse slang) To spoil or ruin; with up, to bungle.
4. (coarse slang) Used in curses and to dismiss someone angrily.

Noun

1. (coarse slang) An act of sexual intercourse.
2. (coarse slang) A sexual partner; also, a despised person.
3. (coarse slang) The least amount: not give a fuck.

Interjection

1. (coarse slang) Expressing extreme anger or annoyance.

Word family

• fucky

Related words

• fiddle
• fidget
• screw
• swive

Usage notes

Hendrickson rejects the popular story that the word comes from a police record entry “for unlawful carnal knowledge”.^[10]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
11. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)