Where did swear words like the f-bomb come from? Let’s explore the origins of six common expletives, from “ass” to “shit” and more. If you’re sensitive to curse words, you might want to stop reading here.
1. Ass
How did the word “ass” meaning “donkey” end up meaning “butt”? Well, they actually have different origins. “Ass” for donkey comes from Old English and Latin, while “ass” for backside is related to “arse,” an Old English word with Germanic roots. Some people changed the spelling of “arse” to match how they said it, similar to how “cuss” came from “curse.”
Calling someone an “ass” as an insult has been around for a long time. In the Middle Ages, people would just call others “asses” instead of using a comparison. Nowadays, “ass” doesn’t necessarily mean someone is foolish; it’s more often used to say someone is unpleasant or despicable.
It’s not clear if this meaning came from the donkey or the backside. But the usage became more common in the 20th century, especially alongside the rise of “asshole”
, which definitely comes from the backside. One early reference to this usage is found in Vance Randolph’s 1976 book “Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales,” where a character talks about God having leftover “ass-holes” after creating humans. This suggests that “ass” meaning despicable gained popularity around the same time as “asshole” as an insult.
2. Bitch
“Bitch” also has its roots in the animal kingdom. Originally, it meant a female dog, coming from Old English and Germanic languages. The first recorded use of “bitch” to insult a woman dates back to the 1100s. But comparing women to dogs isn’t new. In a play by Plautus from ancient Rome, a woman is called “canicula,” which means “dog” in Latin. (To be fair, the character had just bitten someone.)
Initially, “bitch” referred to a “lewd or lascivious woman,” but over time, it became a general insult for any woman. Not surprisingly, women have been upset about this word for a long time. As far back as 1785, it was considered “the most offensive term” for an English woman.
3. Cunt
Today, the word “cunt” is often seen as one of the most offensive insults for women, possibly coming from Germanic languages. However, it didn’t become an insult until the 1600s. Before that, it mainly just meant female genitals.
Many of the earliest uses of “cunt” were in place names. In England, there were about 20 streets called Gropecuntelane in the 1200s and later, which were thought to be places where sex work happened. Other names from the 13th century suggest that people also used “cunt” to describe land formations that looked like female genitals, such as hills, valleys, and streams. Some of these places still have similar names today, like Lower Cunliffe.
Back in medieval times, “cunt” didn’t seem to be considered very rude or offensive. It appeared on maps and in medical books without much fuss. But by the 18th century, it had become a strong swear word, and most English dictionaries didn’t even include it until the 1960s. Recently, though, the word has been used more positively, especially in popular culture, thanks to drag queens and songs like Beyoncé’s “PURE/HONEY.” However, these positive meanings haven’t made it into official dictionaries yet.
4. Damn
The word “damn” originally came from French and Latin words and wasn’t always a swear word. Around 1300, to “damn” someone meant to sentence them for a crime. Later, in the same century, people started using it in religious contexts to mean being sent to hell forever.
By the late 16th century, “damn” started being used as a strong word to express annoyance, hatred, or condemnation.
Saying something like “damn” with the added idea of eternal punishment can make it sound even more powerful, especially if it involves breaking one of the Ten Commandments. The word “damn” was considered very bad to say in the 19th and early 20th centuries, often written with dashes instead of letters, similar to how we use asterisks for curse words today.
5. Fuck
The word “fuck” likely comes from Germanic origins. Many words in Germanic with roots like fik-, fak-, fuk-, fok- have meanings related to moving back and forth or cheating. This idea is still seen in the word “fuck,” and we use “screw” in a similar way.
Originally, “fuck” meant “to copulate,” but it’s not clear exactly when this meaning started. The earliest known written use of “fuck” is in a poem called “Flen, Flyys” from around 1500. The poem is written in a mix of Middle English and Latin, and it’s encoded to hide the inappropriate parts. When decoded, one line talks about friars not being in heaven because they “fuck the wives of Ely,” a town in England.
There’s also evidence that “fuck” was used before 1500. In 1310, a man named Roger Fuckebythenavele is mentioned in court records. Historians think this might have been a nickname, and there are theories about how Roger got it. One theory is that he was inexperienced in sex and tried to copulate in a funny way, or he was seen as a dimwit.
6. Shit
The word “shit” comes from the Germanic languages. Early Old English speakers used it to talk about diarrhea, especially in cattle. By the 1500s, people used “shit” to talk about any kind of feces, and they could spell it however they wanted. They also started using it to insult people, especially men.
Even famous poets from that time weren’t afraid to call each other “shits.” In the early 16th century, Scottish poets Walter Kennedy and William Dunbar had a battle of insults, where Kennedy called Dunbar “a shit without wit.”
In the mid-1800s, people started using “shit” as an interjection. But because it was seen as vulgar, it sometimes caused problems in print. Before E.E. Cummings’s World War I novel “The Enormous Room” was published in 1922, the publishers were worried about getting sued for using “shit” in the book. So they changed every mention of “shit” to French in the first edition.
