The F-Word

by Jesse Sheidlower

  b. intransitive. to engage in heterosexual intercourse involving the penetration of the penis into the vagina.

  ca1500 in W. Dunbar Poems 40: He clappit fast, he kist, he chukkit… Yit be his feiris he wald haif fukkit. 1535–36 in D. Lindsay Works I 103: Ay fukkand lyke ane furious Fornicatour. ca1550 in D. Lindsay Satyre 88: Bischops ar blist howbeit that thay be waryit/For thay may fuck thair fill and be unmaryit. a1568 in J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang & Its Analogues III 80: Allace! said sche, my awin sweit thing,/Your courtly fukking garis me fling. 1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes 137/1: Fottere…to iape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupy. ca1610 in E. J. Burford Bawdy Verse (1983) 63: She’s a damn’d lascivious Bitch/And fucks for half-a-crown. ca1650 in J. Wardroper Love & Drollery (1969) 187: Had ever maiden that good luck…/O ’twould invite a maid to —. 1683 in J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang & Its Analogues III 80: From St. James’s to the Land of Thule,/There’s not a whore who f—s so like a mule. ca1800 in J. Holloway & J. Black Later English Broadside Ballads (1975) 223: Jenny cries nay, I won’t F—k for a shilling. 1845 in A. Johnson Papers I 218: In other words…he was “Chewing drinking & fucking his way to the legislature.” 1864 in G. C. Rable Civil Wars (1991) 161: Have you any sisters? If you have I should like to fuck them. That was my business before I came into the service, and now I am fucking for Uncle Sam. 1916 M. Cowley in P. Jay Burke-Cowley Correspondence 22: He drinks, fucks, swears,…is popular with girls. 1918 in M. B. Carey Mlle. from Armentières II (unpaged): Over the top with the best of luck,/The first over there is the first to —. 1938 J. O’Hara in Selected Letters 134: Oh, and Mrs. — — — —, who wanted everybody to get drunk and start fucking. 1940 in T. Williams Letters 11: I am taking free conga lessons…and fucking every night. 1965 L. Ferlinghetti Situation in the West in Starting from San Francisco (1967) 63: Let’s repeat it together/To fuck is to love. 1968 Harper’s Mag. (Apr.) 52: I like your looks. Come to my room tonight at seven o’clock, we’ll fuck. 1973 E. Jong Fear of Flying 33: Silent Bennett was my healer. A physician for my head and a psychoanalyst for my cunt. He fucked and fucked in ear-splitting silence. 1982 R. M. Brown Southern Discomfort 195: Great ladies don’t even admit fucking with their husbands. a1990 E. Currie Dope & Trouble 205: You know, they fucked, and everything. 2006 “L. Burana” Try 165: “Heard you fuck like a bastard,” she hollered over the music.

  c. transitive and intransitive. to make a sexual thrust into; rub against in a sexual way; engage in intercourse other than heterosexual genital intercourse [with].

  [1680 School of Venus II. 99: An hour after, he Ferked my Arse again in the same manner.] 1698 Account of the Proceedings against Capt. Edward Rigby for the Abominable Sin of Sodomy verso: Then Rigby sitting on Mint-ons Lap, kist him several times, putting his Tongue into his Mouth, askt him, if he should F----- him, how can that be askt Minton, I’le show you answered Rigby. ca1710 in L. S. A. M. von Römer Rochester’s Sodom (1905) IV. 39: Then arse they fuck and bugger one another. 1829 New South Wales State Archives (Oct. 5) (T 143), in Gay Perspectives 34: I slept in the middle and the Prisoner kept putting his arms & legs over me & he said on different occasions “Fox I should like to fuck you” and added “you may do the same to me whenever you like.” 1846 Reports of the Supreme Court of Missouri IX. 768: The slanderous charge was carnal knowledge of a mare, and the word “fuck” was used to convey the imputation. 1879 Pearl 203: Can’t you just fuck her in the bum? ca1890 My Secret Life XI. iv.: I had taken home from *** a fine dildo which squirted liquids, and which it amused her to be fucked with. Then I fucked her with it, licking her clitoris whilst I did it to her. 1908 Way of a Man with a Maid 139: She felt Connie’s cunt against hers and the exciting friction again commencing. Connie was evidently very much worked up, and she confessed afterwards that the consciousness that she was fucking Molly’s mother in Molly’s presence sent her to fever heat. 1909 J. Joyce Letter (Dec. 6) in Selected Letters (1975) 184: I feel mad to…fuck between your two rosy-tipped bubbies. 1923 Poems, Ballads & Parodies 47: A bull dog fucked him in the ear. 1955–56 A. Ginsberg Howl I: Who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy. 1967 N. Mailer Why are we in Vietnam? ix. 163: Gutsy will fuck any orifice, nostril, ear…even cream between two fat tits. 1968 P. Roth Portnoy’s Complaint 145: They have a whore in there, kid, who fucks the curtain with her bare twat. 1970 “Viva” Superstar 249: Want to get fucked with this? (she pulls out a plastic dildo). 1971 A. Andrews in A. M. Zwicky et al. Studies out in Left Field (1992) 37: Butch fucked the mannikin through the hole he drilled in its crotch. 1976 J. Vasco Three-Hole Girl 164: Stick your tongue in my pussy hole, Lisa, fuck my pussy with your mouth! 1994 “G. Indiana” Rent Boy 23: Back in his own country guys only get fucked when they’re real little and when they grow up they’re supposed to, you know, do the fucking, and it’s considered unmanly for a guy in his twenties like Mohammed to get off on getting fucked. 1995 L. Garrett Coming Plague x. 263: Why do faggots have to fuck so fucking much? ca2000 E. Chapman Flaunting It in “Trixi” Faster Pussycats (2001) 47: “Good boy. You’re learning now. I want to see you get your face fucked… Go on. Take it.” She pressed my head down so that my throat had no choice but to engulf the entire length of silicone.

  d. (in various similes and proverbs). See also FOUR FS.

  ca1677 in Lord Rochester Complete Poems 137: My heart would never doubt,/…To wish those eyes fucked out. 1884 Randiana 28: He had thrown her down…and had fucked her heart out in a shorter space of time than it takes me to write it. 1916–22 H. N. Cary Sexual Vocabulary I under copulation: Fucking like a mink. To copulate frequently. [1928 S. V. Benét John Brown’s Body 99: The whole troop grumbled and wondered, aching/For fighting, fleeing or fornicating/Or anything else except this bored waiting.] 1932 S. Longstreet Nell Kimball 15: He…never did anyone a favor, fucked like a mink. 1938 “Justinian” Americana Sexualis 23: Fuck a dead horse! 1941 R.P. Smith So It Doesn’t Whistle 102: Dutch would say: “The —ing you get ain’t worth the —ing you get.” 1942 W. L. McAtee Supplement to Grant Co. 6 [refers to 1890s]: Mink”, “fuck like a, phr., with the senses of enthusiastically, enduringly, intensively. 1947 J. Cheever in Letters (1988) 125: I want to write short stories like I want to fuck a chicken. 1952 in G. Legman Dirty Joke 284: I’m going to fuck you till your ears fly off. 1964 J. Peacock To Drill & Die 140: He’d fuck a snake if someone would hold its head. 1965 S. Linakis In Spring the War Ended 60: The fellow said the fraulein’s name was Gertie and she fucked like a mink. 1970 W. C. Woods Killing Zone 112: I wish you were here too, so I could fuck your brains out. 1971 S. Stevens Way Uptown 241: And ’fore you could fuck a duck they were into the whole white-guilt thing. 1972 in Penthouse (Jan. 1973) 116: Emily is fucking like a minx. 1974 Univ. Tenn. student: I’d like to fuck her eyes out. 1974 G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade 14: I would’ve fucked a snake, I could’ve got somebody [to] hold it for me. 1975 J. Wambaugh Choirboys 248: You don’t look big enough to fight, fuck or run a footrace. 1976 Kalamazoo, Mich., man, age 29: My father used to say, “Now you’re ready to fight, fuck, or run a footrace.” It meant all ready to go. 1976 S. Hayden Voyage 663: Make or break. Fuck or fall back. 1976 M. Braly False Starts 204: I thought I should have been able to fuck a bear trap if someone had glued a little hair on it. 1978 T. Alibrandi Killshot 235: These kids today don’t know whether to fuck, fight or hold the light. 1978 L. Kramer Faggots 228: Good evening! I am so happy we are all now here!…I shall personally build flower boxes for us all…and I shall continue my experimentation into the tambourine and I shall fuck fuck fuck like a bunny! 1979 U.S. college student: He was mad enough to fuck a duck. 1980 in Penthouse (Jan. 1981) 26: By that time she was so hot that she would have fucked a rock pile if she thought there was a snake in it. 1980 J. DiFusco et al. Tracers 35: Sounds like…two skeletons fuckin’ on a footlocker. 1982 West Virginia woman, age ca27: Well, fuck a snake! Look who’s here! 1983 W. D. Ehrhart Vietnam to Perkasie 14: While every…hippie in Trenton fucked her eyeballs out. 1986
R. Chapman New Dictionary of American Slang: Fuck like a bunny…To copulate readily and vigorously. 1988 C. Roberts & C. Sasser Walking Dead 143: Everybody said you’d fuck a snake if somebody held its head. 1988 P. Duncan 84 Charlie MoPic (film): Quick, like a bunny fucks! Ibid. You two make more noise than two skeletons fucking on a tin roof. 1998 H. Peach Outlaw Girls in P. Banting Fresh Tracks 199: They fucked like alleycats/and like rabbits and then like elk…they fucked like timber falling/out of the sky and like a tsunami and/like a particular frail moonrise/they fucked like a housefire/the flames screaming up/from the inside out.

  2.a. to harm irreparably; finish; damage; spoil; botch; (chiefly in passive) to put into a difficult or hopeless situation; doom.

  1776 Frisky Songster (new edition) 36: Hey ho! the wind did blow, down they fell,/Breeches and petticoat into the well./O, says the breeches, I shall be duck’d./Aye, says the petticoat I shall be f—d./O, how my old grannum will grumble and grunt,/When she’s got ne’er a petticoat to cover her c—t. 1906 Southwestern Reporter XCV. 1083/2: Accused testified that prior to the homicide his brother had informed him that the deceased had stated that he would whip accused and his brother and fuck the whole family, a charge on manslaughter was not insufficient because it did not charge the jury that insulting conduct towards the female relatives of accused constituted adequate cause, for the word “fuck” only conveyed the idea of ill will towards the brother of accused, and a purpose to bring on a difficulty with him, especially in view of affidavits on a motion for a new trial averring that the word used meant “to whip, or beat, or chastise.” 1929 in F. S. Fitzgerald Correspondence 226: Now you make them read the word cooked (+ fucked would be as bad) one dozen times. 1929 E. Hemingway Farewell to Arms (U.S. ed.) xxix. 219: The wheels spun and we pushed and pushed [the car]. But it wasn’t any use. “It’s ——,” I said. 1931 J. Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen 7 [refers to ca1914]: I guess I’m f—d for fair then. 1934 H. Miller Tropic of Cancer 48: We’ll take his lousy review and we’ll fuck him good and proper.… The magazine’ll be finished. 1935 L. Zukofsky in G. Ahearn Pound/Zukofsky 160: Time fucks it. 1937 A. Binns Laurels Are Cut Down 200 [refers to 1920]: We did all their fighting. Now that we’ve quit, they’re —ed. 1938–39 J. Dos Passos Young Man 257: Less said everything was the matter, American Miners was f—d to hell and back, the boys in Slade County was f—d and now here was this christbitten hellbound party line f—g them proper. 1941 E. Hemingway in Selected Letters (1981) 532: We are fucked in this war as of the first day. 1948 N. Mailer Naked & Dead 10: Even they can’t fug me this time. 1967 N. Mailer Why We Are in Vietnam 111: He, Rusty, is fucked unless he gets that bear. 1970 M. Thomas Total Beast 137: He was fucking old Sunshine with that knife! 1970 R. Byrne Memories non-Jewish Childhood 90: The snowdrifts and slush made darting and dodging impossible. I was, in short, fucked. 1972 D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 159: We got too many ways to fuck ’em. 1984 M. Wallace & G. P. Gates Close Encounters 155 [refers to 1968]: I drew a breath and continued, man to man. “Vietnam fucked you, Mr. President, and so, I’m afraid, you fucked the country.” 1984 K. Weaver Texas Crude 3: I got you faded, fucked, and laughed at. 1989 S. Lee Do the Right Thing (film): I oughta fuck you just for that. 1995 D. McLean Bunker Man 41: He didn’t want to slip going round a corner and fuck his ankle. 2000 I. Welsh in N. Hornby Speaking with Angel 178: My heart-beat’s racing and there’s a pain in my chest. I’ll have to take things easier, drinking heavily in this heat always fucks me. 2005 W. Henderson in A. St. John Clapton’s Guitar xiv. 135: I don’t get distracted.… If I got distracted, I’d be fucked.

  b. to botch; bungle; FUCK UP, definition 1.—also used with it.

  1969 L. Sanders Anderson Tapes 43: It might fuck the whole thing. 1973 W. Karlin et al. Free Fire Zone 108: Pellegrini, you fucked it again. Ibid. 110: Them niggers fucked the roof—built this house so fast. 1972–79 T. Wolfe Right Stuff 243: Oh, it was obvious…that Grissom had just fucked it…that was all.

  3. a. to cheat; deceive; betray. Compare synonyms screw and FRIG. [At the 1866 quotation, there is a note by the notary public following “fucked” that reads: “Before putting down the word as used by the witness, I requested him to reflect upon the language he attributed to Mr Baker, and not to impute to him an outrage upon all that was decent. The witness reitterated [sic] it, and said that it was the word used by Mr Baker.”]

  1866 G. Washington Affidavit (Oct. 20) in I. Berlin et al. Black Military Experience in Civil War (1982) 791: Mr Baker replied that deponent would be fucked out of his money by Mr Brown. 1927 [J. Fliesler] Anecdota Americana 76: It looks like you’ve fucked yourself out of a seat. 1932 H. Miller in Letters to Emil (1989) 114: But they fucked me all right. Fucked me good and proper. 1934 H. Miller Tropic of Cancer 49: One by one I’ve fucked myself out of all these free meals which I had planned so carefully. 1935 E. E. Cummings in Letters 136: “Fuck” has been changed to “trick” in new [New English Weekly] today arriving with editor’s comments. 1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark American Thesaurus of Slang 312: Cheat; defraud…fuck (out of). 1945 in D. Levin From Battlefield 56: He has been fucked again and again by the Corps. 1951 in International Journal of Psycho-Analysis XXV (1954) 39: To “get fucked” is to be made a “sucker.” 1954 L. Yablonsky Violent Gang 75: Although I hang with them for protection, I fuck everybody. They try to burn me, I get my blade, I’ll get ’em all but good. 1959 W. Burroughs Naked Lunch 179: You’re trying to fuck me out of my commission! 1960 G. Sire Deathmakers 44: They’re out to fuck you. The whole fucking world. So fuck them first. 1961 J. Baldwin Another Country 77: We been fucked for fair. 1965 in J. Mills On Edge 8: You thought you were going to get laid, and what you really got was fucked. 1969 L. H. Whittemore Cop! 27: So it’s the Puerto Ricans that fuck the Puerto Ricans. They sell their own people the worst shit. 1972 D. Halberstam Best & Brightest 66 [refers to 1961]: Carl Kaysen…brought in the news that the Soviets had resumed atmospheric [nuclear] testing. The President’s reaction was simple and basic and reflected due frustrations of that year. “Fucked again,” he said. 1978 W. Strieber Wolfen 201: But he ain’t gonna fuck me. He must think I’m some kind of schoolboy. 1979–82 L. Gwin Going Overboard 195: As Mick tried to teach me, “Top dog fucks the bottom dog. That’s the law of the jungle.” 1983–86 G.C. Wilson Supercarrier 67: “Being in the Russian military is like being in a chicken coop,” Belenko would say in his lectures. “You know you’re going to be fucked, you just don’t know when.” 1994 Q. Tarantino Pulp Fiction 32: Brett. I just want you to know how sorry we are about how fucked up things got between us and Mr. Wallace. When we entered into this thing, we only had the best intentions—…Jules. Does he look like a bitch?… Then why did you try to fuck ’im like a bitch?… Yes ya did Brett. Ya tried ta fuck ’im. 2004 P. Biskind Down & Dirty Pictures vi. 215: According to their bookkeeping, the film never made anything, even though it made so much money all over the world. I just got fucked out of everything.