The F-Word

by Jesse Sheidlower

  1971 J. Hibberd Stretch of the Imagination 23: (He continues [gardening] for a while, then stops suddenly, in pain and bent over at a fixed angle at the hips.) Faaarrk. 1983 D. Foster Plumbum ii. 56: “When it somes to drumming, you’d make a good panel beater.” “Farkin’ hell!” 1992 Picture (Sydney) (Feb. 5) 26/1: Experts reckon that now our bastard drought has broken, roaches will breed like buggery and we’ll stand no farkin’ chance. 1994 Picture (Sydney) (Feb. 5) 14/2: And if this year’s show is anything to go by, that’ll be a dead farkin’ cert. 1996 Tracks (Sydney) (June) 51/2: Faark! (Sorry, I had to say that ’cause this word is a major part of Australian surfer’s dialect.) 1998 Hairball Goulash (Wodonga, NSW) 26: They did walk and they di[d] see in each other that words could not express how beautiful these dirty grotty streets in this farked up hostile world looked to them… 1998 Hairball Goulash (Wodonga, NSW) 26: Tanith, and her typewriter put this zine together, and it is so farken cool. 2001 Touch (Dec.) 127/1: So Touch Magazine is back. Thank fuck. It’s about farking time that the best magazine made its late but welcome spectacular entrance on the market. 2003 K. Kuitenbrouwer Way Up iv. 62: Jane Rae, Joanie and I went for a walk so we could smoke up, farking freezing.

  F-bomb noun

  the word FUCK or one of its variants or compounds, esp. with reference to it as a shocking or inappropriate term. Often in to drop the F-bomb.

  1988 Newsday (New York) (Aug. 11) i. 144/3: That was when I used to use the F-bomb. 1991 Boston Globe (Jan. 11) (Sports section) 31: It looked like I was calling him everything in the book.… I dropped the F-bomb a few times. 1995 Denver Post (June 11) B 10/3: I tried not to say any F-bombs with my mom there. 2000 Sporting News (Oct. 23) 54: 4… Times (at least) lip readers with an aversion to the f-bomb would have blushed if they watched Games 3 and 4 of the NLCS. 2002 A. St. John in Village Voice (Aug. 28) 159/4: When he got a questionable call late in the fifth set against Hewitt, he launched an atypical F-bomb on the umpire and promptly pissed away what was left of the match. 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer (May 7) B4/5: Two years ago, Vice President Cheney dropped the f-bomb on Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor, then defiantly said, “I feel better now.” 2008 Sports Illustrated (Dec. 19) 16: Of course, with no restrictor plates on anyone’s mouth, the language can get hotter than a brake pad at Martinsville—Stewart’s f bomb-laden exchange with crew chief Greg Zipadelli at Indy in July being Exhibit A.

  feck verb

  Irish. (a partial euphemism, in various senses, parts of speech, and derived forms, for) FUCK. [Popularized on the Father Ted TV series.]

  1980 “H. Leonard” Life I. 24 Feck off, that’s not yours. 1989 H. Leonard Out After Dark: I went on clinging to the wall until old Fanning made feck-off gestures of great savagery. 1993 D. Purcell Falling for a Dancer: “Fecker,” said Hazel passionately. “That’s all he is, a fecker. I can’t stand the sight of him.” 1995 P. Boland Tales from a City Farmyard: Some little fecker of a kid pinched the bum off me. 1998 M. McDonagh Beauty Queen of Leenane (play): Feck! 1999 F. McCourt ’Tis xvii. 136: He’s over by the coal range with a mug of tea and all he does is smoke cigarettes and cough till he’s weak, clutching at himself and laughing, These feckin’ fags will kill me in the end. 2003 J. Mullaney We’ll be Back 33: It’s a dangerous path to go down, but what the feck do I know? I’m only a football fan who’s dropped out of the rat race with ill health.

  fed up adjective

  In phrase:

  fed up, fucked up, and far from home, Military. disgusted, helpless, and far from one’s home. Compare fucked [up] and far from home under FUCK, verb.

  1936 E. Partridge Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English 269: In the [First World War], a military [catch phrase] ran, fed up, f**ked up, and far from home. 1977 P. Caputo Rumor of War 93 [refers to 1965]: The Marines are all in the same state of mind as I, “fed-up, fucked-up, and far from home.” 1979–81 C. Buckley Steaming to Bamboola 207: “Fucked up, fed up, and far away from home,” he snorted. 1984 E. Partridge Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English (ed. 8) 383: Fed-up, fucked up, and far from home…still being used by the WWI Tommies’ soldier-grandsons, 1970s. 1984 A. Burgess Enderby’s Dark Lady 84: Fed up, fucked up and far from home. 1998 A. Sillitoe Broken Chariot 98: When the six hundred men were moved from place to place, an exercise of seeming pointlessness, all complained at being fed up, fucked up, and far from home.

  ferk verb

  (a partial euphemism for) FUCK in various senses and parts of speech. Sometimes jocular.

  ca1929 Collection of Sea Songs 43: Perkin you’re shirkin your ferkin. 1945 T. Lea Peleliu Landing 15: It’s the ferking night time I don’t like, when them little ferkers come sneakin’ into your lap. 1946–51 J. Jones From Here to Eternity ch. xxi [refers to ca1940]: Ah, what’s the difference? They all the ferkin same. Five cents of one, a nickel of the other. 1965 in G. Legman New Limerick 4: He jerked ’em, and ferked ’em. 1977 J. Hersey Walnut Door 56: She raved for several hours, keening most of her threnody not at Macaboy, whom she addressed exclusively as you ferking shithead, but at her dear dead daddy. 2007 K. Tout By Tank 87: Bloody SS. Shit on you, rotten buggers. Shooting our colonel. Why don’t you ferk off back home and shoot bleeding Hitler.

  fiddlefuck verb

  to play or fiddle about; FUCK AROUND.—usually used with around. Also (in 1974 quotation) as noun.

  1949 W.S. Burroughs Letter (Jan. 16) in Letters of William S. Burroughs (1993) 35: When his neglect takes the form of deserting her without funds (what money she has did not come from him), and expecting me to take over until such time as he gets tired of fiddle fucking around N.Y. and decides to come down here, it ceases to be a personal matter between him and his wife. 1974 R. Stone Dog Soldiers 321: Some of you birds think I’m down here to play fiddle fuck around. 1973–77 J. Jones Whistle 506 [refers to WWII]: It was strange, all right, and he didn’t fiddlefuck around. 1979 J. Hurling Boomers 84: I’m not going to fiddle-fuck around ’til those pricks come out of the office. 1985 D. Dye Run Between the Raindrops 192: Can’t fiddle-fuck around on the perimeter. 1990 G. G. Liddy Monkey Handlers xix. 322: Better to get ahead than fiddle-fuck along like this. 2002 New Yorker (July 15) 73/3: She was all reticence and demurrals—no drink, no dinner, no nothing.… The mournful fraülein desired them to stop fiddle-fucking, order dinner or go away. 2008 Guardian (Feb. 16) (Saturday Comment section) 32/3: But we’ll let an editor fiddlefuck all over with it [sc. a novel].

  In phrase:

  be fiddlefucked to be damned.

  1976 P. Atlee Last Domino Contract 52: This is Korea’s nuclear reactor one…and I’ll be fiddle-fucked if I understand why it hasn’t fallen down yet.

  fiddlefucking adjective

  = FUCKING, adjective.

  1974 P. Roth My Life as a Man 19: I guaranfuckingtee you gentlemen, not one swingin’ dick will be leavin’ this fiddlefuckin’ area to so much as chew on a nanny goat’s tittie.

  fiddler’s fuck noun

  a damn; fuck noun, definition 2.a.; in phrase: not make a fiddler’s fuck, not make any difference. [The 1932 quotation is euphemistic.]

  1932 V. F. Nelson Prison Days & Nights 25: We could all rot to death, and they wouldn’t give a fiddler’s so-and-so for us. 1961 H. Selby Room 187: They ain’t worth a fiddlers fuck. 1973 W. Crawford Stryker 91: I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck about jurisdictional disputes, ace. 1976 P. Atlee Last Domino Contract 175: A shamed patriot…ain’t worth a fiddler’s fuck. 1978 H. Selby Requiem for a Dream 183: Why didn’t make a fiddler’s fuck. 1979 G. Wolff Duke of Deception 236: I didn’t care a fiddler’s fuck where my father was. 1984 W. J. Caunitz One Police Plaza 22: I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck what the Forensic boys like. 2000 T. Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates 87: You come along on your bleeding errand, oblivious, unmindful, not caring a fiddler’s fuck, and fall into it, just bloody stumble into it, roses and whistles.

  fiddly-fuck noun

  = FIDDLER’S FUCK.

  1973 New York City man, age 25: Do you think I give a fiddl
y-fuck? 1992 S. King Dolores Claiborne (1993) 62: I didn’t know what’d happen to her or who would take care of her, but right then I didn’t care a fiddlyfuck.

  In phrase:

  play fiddly-fuck, to fool around.

  1964–66 R. Stone Hall of Mirrors 305: I didn’t come out to play fiddly fuck. 2001 S. King Dreamcatcher xiii. 453: We don’t think they will come again, or at least not for awhile. They played fiddly-fuck for half a century before getting this far. 2006 S. King Lisey’s Story 289: He was coming around and you were still out there playin fiddly-fuck in the shed.

  fifteen fucker noun

  Army. punishment under Article 15 of the Army Code of Conduct.

  1981–89 R. Atkinson Long Gray Line 295: Each of them was reprimanded, fined $300, and given an Article 15—an administrative punishment known within the ranks as a Fifteen Fucker—“for conduct totally unbecoming an officer.” 2004 P. Maslowski Looking for a Hero iii. 73: At 6:00 am on May 1 Joe missed reveille formation, resulting in a Fifteen Fucker that sentenced him to forfeit $163 for one month.

  FIGMO [“ fuck it, got my orders,” with variations] interjection & adjective

  Military. (used as an expression of contempt or dismissal). Also FUIGMO. Compare FUJIGMO. Jocular.

  1962 F. Harvey Strike Command 101: Everybody in the Air Force is familiar with the expression a man about to ship out to some new duty station gives those about him who have some insane notion that they’ll get some useful work out of him. It is “FIGMO!”…the expression which…[he] delivers at his new duty station…is FIGMO spelled backward, or OMGIF! 1968 J.D. Houston Between Battles 212: Once he knows [he is scheduled to rotate], he goes FUIGMO—fuck u, I got my orders. At the PX he buys a FUIGMO button. 1969 C. C. Moskos American Enlisted Man 144: Rather, the attitude is typically, “I’ve done my time, let the others do theirs.” Or, as put in the soldier’s vernacular, he is waiting to make the final entry on his “FIGMO” chart—fuck it, got my orders (to return to the United States). 1969 Current Slang I & II 32: Figmo…“forget it, I’ve got my orders.”—Air Force Academy cadets. 1983 J. Groen & D. Groen Huey 102 [refers to 1971]: Roger and John were among the few remaining…who were not figmo (fuck it, got my orders). Ibid. 105: You’re figmo…I’ll send them. 2005 D. DeFrain Salt Palace viii. 80: I was in Palermo for most of mine. F.I.G.M.O., you know?

  fingerfuck noun

  an act of masturbation of the vagina or anus.

  [1884 Randiana 31: The easy transition from a kiss to a feel, from a feel to a finger frig, and eventually by a more natural sequence to a gentle insertion of the jock.] 1970 E. E. Landy Underground Dictionary 77: Finger fuck…n. Stimulation of the female sex organs with the finger. 1978 J. Webb Fields of Fire 228: This bastard wants to kill me for a damn fingerfuck. 1999 S. Rushdie Ground beneath her Feet xiv. 443: Sometimes she lazily played at adolescent sex, all finger-fucks and blow-jobs; more often she just came at you like Octopussy, all arms and legs and whoops-a-daisy. 2005 “Noire” Candy Licker viii. 78: I told them all about the finger fuck he gave me on the dance floor.

  fingerfuck verb

  to masturbate the vagina or anus [of].

  a1793 R. Burns Merry Muses 29: She m—s like reek thro’ a’ the week,/But finger f—s on Sunday, O. ca1866 Romance of Lust 197: Anything but finger-fucking. a1890–91 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang & Its Analogues II 398: Finger-fucking…masturbation (said of women only). 1916 H. N. Cary Slang of Venery I 84: Finger fucking—to induce a sexual spasm in a woman by digitation. 1921 in E. Cray Erotic Muse 195: There she saw her lovin’ boy/finger-fucking Nellie Bly. 1945–48 Marianas Collection (unpaged): I started finger fucking myself. 1964 in H. Huncke Huncke’s Journal 4: Licking—eating—jerking off and finger fucking. 1965 C. Bukowski Letter (Feb.–Mar.) in Screams from Balcony: Selected Letters (1998) 135: Who knows about the boss finger-fucking the secretary in the stock room? 1968 P. Roth Portnoy’s Complaint 143: She wants you to finger-fuck her shikse cunt till she faints. 1970 R. Byrne Memories non-Jewish Childhood 157: I get tired of finger-fucking Wanda Farney all the time. 1970 G. Cain Blueschild Baby 53: Boy and girl flirting in hall shadowkiss and finger fuck. 1971 H. Dahlskog Dictionary of Contemporary & Colloquial Usage 23: Fingerfuck, v. Vulgar. To arouse (someone) sexually by vaginal or rectal stimulation with the finger. 1976 J. Johnson Oriental Festival 139: I’m gonna…slip my finger inside your hot ass.… Maybe I should give you a little finger fucking. 1983 Playboy (Aug.) 88: He claims that he is obsessed with sex, that he has done it with animals, that he’s finger-fucked his cat. 1991 M. Dibdin Dirty Tricks (1992) 103: Despite her frantic pleas I refused to go any further than finger-fucking until she had signed on the dotted line. 1996 Village Voice (N.Y.C.) (Apr. 23) 74: Then he finger-fucks her on a roller coaster. 2000 New Yorker (Sept. 4) 48/3: Then you got guys standing around…talking about how they finger-fucked you and your yin-yang made their hands smell like tuna fish. 2007 J. McCourt Now Voyagers xi. 512: “Finger-fuck me then, you heavenly boy-man,” she brayed to be heard in the hall.

  fist-fuck verb

  Especially Homosexuals. to insert the hand into the rectum or vagina for sexual stimulation. Also as noun.

  [1971 (see quote at FIST-FUCKING noun definition 2).] 1972 B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 81: Fist fuck. The extended process of inserting a fist to the elbow anally. 1978 R. Price Ladies’ Man 224: That guy’s into getting fist fucked…right up the ass. Right up to the elbow. Can you believe that? 1978 L. Kramer Faggots 216: You probably still want me to fist-fuck you, don’t you?.… I could never understand why you liked to get fist-fucked and don’t like to get regular fucked. 1984 H. Gould Cocktail 91: He liked to put on mesh stockings…and get fist-fucked. 1991 J. Barth Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor 368: He aspired one day to fist-fuck Sindbad the Sailor in his half an ass. 1995 New Statesman (Aug. 4) 41: Each month’s curse earned her a beating on the bedpost, a fistfuck for failure, exposure on the platform at the march past. 1995 Village Voice (N.Y.C.) (Dec. 12) 31: For a grand finale she got fistfucked by a ring-wearing “gypsy” lady while deep-throating a 13-inch dick. 2002 W. Self Dorian x. 144: “His gut,” he said of one patient, “was punctured by some guy fist-fucking him.”

  fist-fucker noun

  1. a man or boy who is a frequent masturbator.—used contemptuously.

  1962 J. O. Killens Then We Heard the Thunder 168 [refers to WWII]: Corporal Solly, you old-fashioned fist-fucker, why don’t you come out of that orderly room and get some air in your ass sometimes? 1969 H. S. Thompson Letter (Dec. 6) in Fear & Loathing in America (2000) 223: Never, under any circumstances, have I been shit on so totally as I was in the course of this Playboy/Killy thing. That whole goddamn magazine is a conspiracy of anemic masturbators.… scurvy fist-fuckers to the last man. 1974 E. Thompson Tattoo 111: I feel plumb sorry for you poor Wichita fistfuckers…got nothin to fuck there but their fists. 1984 A. R. Sample Racehoss 266 [refers to 1960s]: Nelly Nuthin, Proud Walker, Bow Wow, and Fistfucker were…dunces. 2006 U. Chatterjee Weight Loss 150: Spilling his precious seed six times a day like a fourteen-year-old fistfucker.

  2. Homosexuals. a practitioner of FIST-FUCKING, definition 2.

  1972 B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 81: Fist fuckers…those who practice fist fucking. 1973 Oui (July) 73: Fist Fuckers of America: Their clenched-fist gestures are often an internal expression. 1985 J. Dillinger Adrenaline 213: How about Fistfucker Beach? 1993 Folio (Oct. 15) 57: The organizers [of a gay-rights march in Washington, D.C.] didn’t want the Fist Fuckers of America marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. 1999 “Eurydice” Satyricon USA 94: The natives patronize corsetries, boutiques that sell Würtenburg wheels, Victorian parlors, Edwardian attics, “handballing soirées,” “electroplay charity fund-raisings.” The streets brim with Gender Variant Folk, Granddaddies and G-spot Mommies, bulldaggers, adult babies, PVC boy-toys and sex-maids, and infinite combinations thereof (top-femme-hookers, butch-bottom-cocksuckers, androgynous leather doggies, radical bi fistfuckers). 2008 J. D. Lichtenberg Sensuality & Sexuality ac
ross Divide of Shame 12: He reported a dream in which a clear stand-in for me was identified as a fist fucker.

  3. a despicable or contemptible fellow.

  1977 in H.S. Thompson Shark Hunt 602: If that treacherous fist-fucker ever comes back to life, he’ll wish we’d had the good sense to nail him up on a frozen telephone pole.

  fist-fucking noun

  1. male masturbation.

  ca1890 My Secret Life VI. i.: All day spite of the relief I had given myself by fist fucking, I was as lewd as I could be, mad to see more of her. ca890–91 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang & Its Analogues II 402: Fist-fucking…masturbation. 1916 H. N. Cary Slang of Venery I 85: Fist fucking—masturbation.

  2. Especially Homosexuals. insertion of the hand into the rectum or vagina for sexual stimulation.

  1971 J. F. Hunter Gay Insider iii. 36: Kim, when worked up, did like rough treatment. He specifically wanted to be plowed hard, preliminary to fist fucking. 1972 (quotation at FIST-FUCKER, definition 2). 1973 Oui (July) 75: We spent some time discussing fist fucking (“it can be dangerous”). 1981 Film Comment (May) 21: Oriental beheadings and Occidental gay fistfuckings. 1984 R. J. Avrech & B. De Palma Body Double (film): No animal acts, no fist-fucking, and absolutely no coming in my face. 1988 R. Shilts And the Band Played On II. ii. 24: “It looks like that guy has his arm up the other guy’s ass.” “He does have an arm up his ass”.… “That’s fist-fucking,” the psychologist said. 1989 S. Chapple & D. Talbot Burning Desires 260: Videos that did not stop at fist-fucking. 1992 Whole Earth Review (June 22) 94: “Is ‘perineal massage’ really fist fucking?”…“Of course.”…A hand going inside my pussy is…exciting. 1997 L. Yablonsky Story of Junk 39: Her specialty was gay male erotica; the idea of fist-fucking gave her a charge. 2001 P. Burston Shameless viii. 114: Dressing up in drag? Fist fucking? He already knew that David found his father attractive. What if the E turned his father into a sex maniac? Would he be able to resist David’s advances?