piss

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pɪs/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English pissen, borrowed from Old French pissier (“to urinate”),^[2][3][4] from Vulgar Latin *pissiāre, of imitative origin.^[2][3][5][4] Word Origins notes that forms of the word are found in both Romance and Germanic languages.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To urinate: about 1290 in the OED, about 1300 in Barnhart and Etymonline.^[7][2][3] The noun, urine, is from before 1387, in Trevisa.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

To piss money against the wall, to waste it, is from the 1540s, and a pissing while once meant a short time (1550s).^[3] To rain heavily and other allusive uses are from 1602.^[7] Piss off, to annoy, is from 1937,^[7] and piss about, to fool around, from 1950.^[7] As an intensifier, as in piss-poor, it dates from 1940 and was popularized in the Second World War.^[3] Piss away, to squander, is from 1948.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1290 – to urinate.^[7]
• before 1387 – urine (noun).^[2]
• 1540s – piss money against the wall.^[3]
• 1937 – piss off, to annoy.^[7]
• 1940 – as an intensifier.^[3]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. (vulgar slang) To urinate.
2. (piss off, vulgar slang) To annoy; or, as an order, to go away.
3. (piss away, vulgar slang) To waste or squander.

Noun

1. (vulgar slang) Urine, or an act of urinating.

Related words

• pissed
• pismire
• urinate

Usage notes

SOED labels the noun and verb now coarse slang.^[8] In British slang pissed means drunk, while in American slang it means angry.^[8][9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin