The F-Word

by Jesse Sheidlower

  2.a. intoxicated by liquor or drugs.

  a1944 in A. Hopkins Songs from Front & Rear (1979) 179: There was old Uncle Ned, he was fair fucked up. 1965 in H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels 236: We’ll smoke up some weed, get all fucked up, feel no fuckin pain. ca1969 D. Rabe Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel 44: Ohhh, you know how much beer I hadda drink to get fucked up on three-two beer? 1970 A. Young Snakes 40: Man, I was fuhhhhhked-up! 1973 Oui (Apr.) 108: God, but I’d love some cocaine.… I got so gloriously fucked up the other night. 1973 R. Roth Sand in Wind 148: I was timing myself on every glass. I was getting fucked up but not as fucked up as I wanted to be. 1977 A. Patrick Beyond Law 144: Either you can sit around here gettin’ fucked up and feelin’ sorry for yourself, or you can straighten up and solve this God damn case. 1978 P. Fisher & M. Rubin Special Teachers/Special Boys 31: He was fucked up on weed. 1979 C. Hiler Monkey Mountain 109: “Eddy!… You fucked up?”…“No, he’s not fucked up.… He’s just crazy.” 1967–80 E. Folb Runnin’ down Some Lines 238: Fucked up. Excessively high. 1985 D. Steel Secrets 48: Sandy’s not fucked up again, is she? 1997 G. Sykes 8 Ball Chicks 87: Janet’s always so fucked up on sherm [PCP]. 1997 D. Simon & E. Burns Corner 509 He’s taking in the boom and beat from the half-assed stereo, with Dre and Snoop and the rest of the Death Row crew telling all them other niggas to make their shit the chronic, ’cause they gots to get fucked-up. 2002 B. L. Thomas Threesome 146: I could tell he was fucked up. He’d been smoking blunts and doing shots of Grand Marnier all night.

  b. thoroughly confused; mentally or emotionally ill; crazy. Also (especially Military) in fanciful similes.

  1945 in A. Dundes & C. Pagter Urban Folklore from Paperwork Empire (1975) 109: The returning soldier is apt to find his opinion different from those of his civilian associates. One should call upon his reserve of etiquette and correct his acquaintances with such remarks as “I believe you have made a mistake” or “I am afraid you are in error on that.” Do NOT say “Brother, you’re really f—d up!” 1945 J. Bassett War Journal 7: It’s no good to keep going, it’s all fucked up, it’s crazy. 1946–50 J. Jones From Here to Eternity 537: I’ve even seen a couple of them that clean lost their head and had to actually be carried out finally they got so fucked up. 1961 J. Peacock Valhalla 385: If he didn’t see Chebe-san he would be more fucked up than Hogan’s goat. 1965 S. Linakis In Spring the War Ended 214: I would even go so far as to say that you’re all fucked up from the war, as they do say. 1967 J. Rechy Numbers 138: It happened long ago, when I was fucked up! 1968 H. Ellison Deadly Streets 103: He wasn’t a bad kid, just fucked-up. 1970 in M. J. Estren Underground of Underground Comics (1974) 155: Wow, man, what kind of fucked up trip are you on? 1973 G.C. Scott in Penthouse (May) 61: Fucked-up kids live in fantasy worlds anyway. 1972–76 C. Durden No Bugles, No Drums 31: You’re fucked up like a Filipino fire drill. 1976 A. Walker Meridian 178: I know white folks are evil and fucked up. 1978 in H. Fierstein Torch Song Trilogy 52: And here you are, more fucked up than ever. 1984 J. McCorkle Cheer Leader 162: You’re crazy, Jo, fucked up. 1989 “Capt. X” & Dodson Unfriendly Skies 115: “Aw, hell” said one of the pilots, “now I’m all fucked up here.” 1992 in Harper’s (Jan. 1993) 23 [cartoon]: You’re too fucked up—Next patient, please. 2001 J. Gough Juno & Juliet i. ix. 23: Fucked-up people are paying someone money to listen to them talk about how amazingly fucked-up they are. 2008 A. Valdes-Rodriguez Dirty Girls on Top 130: I almost wish I didn’t know how fucked up I was, because then I could just go around feeling okay and still being fucked up.

  c. deeply troubled or upset; distraught.

  1948 E. Hemingway in Selected Letters (1981) 648: I was all fucked up when I wrote it and threw away about 100,000 words which was better than most of what I left in. 1951 American Journal of Sociology LI 421 [refers to WWII]: We learn of soldier attitudes to authority by noting the sympathy for those who are not successful in adjusting but are “f—ed up.”…It may connote inability or inefficiency. 1962 V. Riccio & B. Slocum All the Way Down 68: I ain’t hooked. I only use it when I feel all fucked up. 1970–71 J. Rubinstein City Police 404: He’s so fucked up about it he’s thinkin’ of quittin’. 1966–80 J. McAleer & B. Dickson Unit Pride 115: I was gonna change it myself but I was too fucked up at the time. 1983 P. Dexter God’s Pocket 158: I got to have this funeral on time.… Jeanie’s all fucked up over this. 1998 Phila. drug addict, on All Things Considered (National Public Radio) (Mar. 4): I felt real fucked up because I didn’t want to hit [i.e., inject] her. 2004 B. Shoup Wish You Were Here (2008) 25: And I am fucked up. I am clearly fucked up. Even I know I ought to be over the divorce after all this time. 2007 G. Kaplan Evil, Inc. 203: If I’m still fucked up about losing Sandy and Sara the way we did, can you even begin to imagine how fucked up you must be?… Of course, you can’t imagine because you’re still so fucked up with your grief and mourning and all that.

  3. contemptible; worthless; miserable; (hence) damned; FUCKING.

  1945 in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K 124: I never been in such a fucked up place in my life. ca1960 in R. D. Abrahams Deep Down in Jungle 130: He throwed me a stale glass of water and flung me a fucked-up piece of meat. 1963 J. Ross Dead Are Mine 269: And you won’t worry about Felix and all the other Felixes in the whole fucked-up Army. 1970 Playboy (Sept.) 278: I’ve met a lot of politicians, and politicians are fucked up everywhere, and they fuck us up because we allow them to. 1970 S. Terkel Hard Times 136: It’s the textbooks that are fucked up. 1974 V.E. Smith Jones Men 103: Shit!…This is fucked up. 1982 D.A. Harper Good Company 76: A half gallon of that old fucked-up wine. 1980–89 J. E. Cheshire Home Boy 105: They’d go for your ankles and sink their fucked-up teeth right into you. 1990 “Ice Cube” Who’s the Mack? (rap song): Rolling in a fucked-up Lincoln…[with a] leopard interior. 1994 in C. Long Love Awaits 95: That good-look’n, clean-look’n girl can have some good look’n, fucked up shit [sc. venereal disease]. 2005 C. Klosterman Killing Yourself to Live 26: I’ll make this fucked-up decision to satisfy the statute of limitations on your fucked-up ultimatum.

  4. utterly fatigued; FUCKED, definition 1.

  1979 D. Gram Boulevard Nights 93: I’m tired man. Fuckin’ fucked up. 1998 Poker player in N.Y.C.: I’ve gotta go home, I’m so tired.… I’m too fucked up to play any more.

  fuckee1 or fucky noun

  (used in pidgin English, or the imitation thereof, in various constructions referring to sexual intercourse). Often as fuckee fuckee. In fuckee-suckee, a combination of oral and vaginal intercourse.

  a1866 E. Sellon Ups & Downs of Life (1987) ii. 43: For make fuckee business, sahib, that girl who is splashing the other one would be too much good. 1946 V. Sheean This House against This House 118: The only Arab women I ever saw to speak to always said to me, “Fuckee, Fuckee, fitty cents.” 1960 H. Miller Nexus (1965) viii. 171: No tickee no fuckee, buy me, take me, squeeze me. 1975 Ribald (Sydney, Australia) (Nov. 13) 7: Newcomers visiting Ribald’s offices often get all bug-eyed about the fuckee-suckee pix lying around the place. 1987 S. Kubrick et al. Full Metal Jacket (film): Do you want number one fuckee? 1998 J. Stewart Naked Pictures of Famous People: Their father [was]…shacked up in some Backwater Indonesian Fuckee Suckee bar. 2003 A. Martinez I’ll be Damned if I Die in Oakland 147: One bored fat lady reclined under a large sign that read, Fuckee Fuckee.

  fuckee2 noun

  1. a person who plays the recipient role in copulation. Jocular.

  1881 Amatory Experiences Surgeon i. 11: My double position of fucker and fuckee soon drove me almost mad with delight. ca1890 My Secret Life VI. xv. 312: She was altogether a choice morsel for those who like a woman full sized.… She was a most voluptuous fuckee. ca1938 in C. Barkley Sex Cartoons 118: The fuckee does a handstand while the fucker simply drops it in. 1979 D. Riepe Owl Flies by Day ii. 29: The attractive assistants were looking into the face of the lady receiving the male offering. Both arms of the fuckee were gracefully stretched out. 1995 Village Voice (N.Y.C.) (Feb. 14) 38: Early flashes of fiery pain in the fuckee as well as su
rprise soft bendings of the fucker make ass-fucking in any position a [complex] negotiation. 1995 Village Voice (N.Y.C.) (Nov. 28) 73: Vidal also wants to make quite sure we understand that in his many sexual exploits he’s always been the fucker, never the fuckee. 2007 J. Sandford Dark of the Moon 167: When he was a teenager, there were locker-room fantasy stories…of guys getting the farmer’s daughter up in the hayloft… In what Virgil assumed was nothing more than an effort at verisimilitude, the alleged fuckee warned Virgil against hay cuts, or hay rash.

  2. the victim of malicious treatment. Jocular.

  1971 S/Sgt., U.S. Army, Fort Campbell, Kentucky: I am one big ugly fucker and I am always on the lookout for fuckees! You don’t want to be one of them! 1973 T. Pynchon Gravity’s Rainbow 559: Fuck not with the Kid, lest instead of fucker thou become fuckee. 1980 W. Sherman Times Square 23: You’re either the fuckee, the fucker, or you’re not in any kind of business. 1983 W. N. Rowe Clapp’s Rock 105: He considers Newfoundland to have gone from eldest ugly step-daughter of the British Empire to youngest fuckee of the Canadian Federation, without getting so much as a kiss during the transition. 1986 R. B. Merkin Zombie Jamboree 44: They’d rather be fuckers than fuckees. 1991 Inside Media (Dec. 18) 1: Lee Wolfman, in speaking of back-end cash blending, often referred to BMC [a marketing company] as the “fucker” and to its clients as the “fuckees.” 1996 N.Y. Observer (Jan. 8) 4: Behold the…smug shifting the blame from society’s fuckers to its fuckees. 1996 Village Voice (N.Y.C.) (May 14) (“Choices”) 1: Belzer’s politics rise off his don’t-fuck-with-me stand. Most of the time, identifying with potential fuckees, he sprays a democratic vitriol that’s bracing in stand-up. 2006 S. Kinzer Overthrow 187: Kennecott and Anaconda were not awarded a cent. “We used to be the fucker,” one of Anaconda’s lawyers lamented. “Now we’re the fuckee.”

  fuckee or fucky verb

  (used in pidgin English, or the imitation thereof, in various constructions referring to sexual intercourse).

  ca1890 My Secret Life X. xiv. 331: The women had learnt a few English words explanatory of copulation—“Me fuckee prick” said one. 1963 H.S. Thompson Letter (Apr. 29) in Proud Highway (1997) 379: The filthy whore in the laundry said we can go out to the “campo” (country) and fuckee-fuckee. If I ever hear that phrase again I am going to break teeth. 1982 N. L. M. Petesch Duncan’s Colony 167: Take me, joe. Fuckee plenny backside. 1996 S. Zeeland Muscular Marine 66: Mama-san give you money back if you not wanna go fuckie. 2003 M. Gruber Tropic of Night 84: When you start fuckee?… You likee orgasms? You let boy touch-em titties?

  fuck-else noun

  nothing else.

  1978 W. Groom Better Times Than These 33: You mean you got fuck-else to worry about than something happened sixty years ago? 1988 D. Caute Fatima’s Scarf 259: Call Hikmat.… There’s fuck-else to do in this dump. a1990 in J. F. Tuso Singing the Vietnam Blues 140: Though my chances were nil there was fuck else to do,/But head for the Black with our whole fuckin’s crew!

  fucker noun

  1. a person, usually a man, who copulates, especially promiscuously.

  1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes 137/1: Fottitore, a iaper, a sarder, a swiver, a fucker, an occupier. 1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes 137/1: Fottitrice, a woman fucker, swiver, sarder, or iaper. 1866 Romance of Lust 275: She grew madly lewd, called me her own dear delightful fucker. 1882 Boudoir 239: Such a prince of f—kers as he is. 1889 Capt. C. Devereaux Venus in India 124: I have known so many instances of girls marrying against their wills…yet become quite happy women simply and solely because their husbands turned out to be first-class fuckers. 1928 D. H. Lawrence Lady Chatterley’s Lover xviii. 334: I’m not just my lady’s fucker, after all. 1963 C. Bukowski Letter (Dec. 7) in Screams from Balcony: Selected Letters (1998) 96: I got the idea that Henry Miller the ALL-KNOWING didn’t know much more about fucking than to talk about it, and that’s the way most non-fuckers are. 1978 L. Kramer Faggots 117: He…quietly… exited through the hall and living room and foyer…, past the islands and inlets and peninsulas of fuckers and suckers and kissers and talkers. 1994 E. McNamee Resurrection Man (1998) i. 12: At the start it was all Jesus, Victor, I could eat you with salt. Her big slow voice. Come on, you big fucker. I’m dying for a fuck. Take you home and fuck you bendy. 1998 M. Merlis Arrow’s Flight 292: That rhythm: it used to mean they were one body, Philoctetes and some anonymous fucker on top of him, pulsing together with one life. 2005 L. McNeil & J. Osborne Other Hollywood 191: Harry wasn’t a good actor. If he was, they would’ve given him a piece of the pornos. But he couldn’t carry them. Harry wasn’t a great actor—but he was a great fucker.

  2. a person, especially a man, who is despicable, wretched, formidable, etc.; bastard; (broadly) a person; fellow.

  a1890–93 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang & Its Analogues III 80: Fucker…a term of endearment, admiration, derision, etc. 1918 in Englische Studien LX (1926) 277: We had a sergeant-major/Who never saw a Hun,/And when the Huns came over/You could see the fucker run. 1914–21 J. Joyce Ulysses 600 [refers to 1904]: I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe! 1926 Englische Studien LX 279 [refers to WWI]: The noun fucker…the very old term of derision, as well as pity (cp. “that poor blighter!”)…was used in the sense of “bloke,” “rotter,” “blighter,” or “bastard,” a word which decorated the speech of overseas men and Americans. 1927 Immortalia 159: The dirty old fucker. 1929 F. Manning Middle Parts of Fortune 146 [refers to WWI]: Laugh, you silly fuckers! Ibid. 150: I’d rather kill some other fucker first. Ibid. 208: If any o’ us poor fuckers did it, we’d be for th’ electric chair. 1945 in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K 197: Them fuckers piss me off. 1945 in D. Levin From Battlefield 52: Hey, you old fucker!…How long you been out here? 1949 V. Van Praag Day Without End 168: Make your shots count!…Kill the lousy stinking fuckers! 1959 G. Morrill Dark Sea Running 11: We carry high-octane gas that burns. If I catch any of you fuckers smoking forward of the messroom doors, I’ll crack your nobs. 1960 G. Sire Deathmakers 43: You’re a mean fucker, Chico. 1961 L. McMurtry Horseman, Pass By 142: “I used to ride them bulls when I was a young fucker,” he said. 1961–64 D. Barthelme Come Back, Dr. Caligari 43: Oh that poor fucker Eric. 1965–70 J. Carroll in Paris Review (No. 50) 107: Her mother [was a] dumb, New Jersey, housewife fucker. 1969–71 R. Kahn Boys of Summer 96: Gonna get them fuckers.… Teach them fuckers to mess with me. 1972 B. Hannah Geronimo Rex 96: Monroe, you dopey fucker. 1975 S. Brownmiller Against Our Will 364: I hate that fucker more today than I did when it happened to me. 1981 A. A. Gilliland Revolution from Rosinante 117: The fucker is going to set himself up as king. 1989 M. Norman These Good Men 115: I love my son; I love that little fucker. 1992 G. Wolff Day at Beach 127: Only thing to keep the fuckers out. 2003 A. Swofford Jarhead 175: The Vietnam War was not an official war either, but a perpetually escalating conflict with many poor, dead, sad fuckers.

  3. an annoying or hateful thing, task, situation, etc.; (broadly) a thing, esp. if striking or remarkable.

  1945 in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K 155: I don’t think I could walk a mile with this fucker on. 1948 N. Mailer Naked & Dead 10 [refers to WWII]: Let’s stop shuffling the fuggers and start playing. 1958 T. Berger Crazy in Berlin 186: If you are that close to the end, you can put the fucker aside for fifteen minutes and write me a letter to the wife. 1961 C. Bukowski Letter (June 22) in C. Bukowski & S. Martinelli Beerspit Night & Cursing: Letters (2001) 245: For a short letter this has turned out to be a fucker. 1968 A. Myrer Eagle 695: And the fucker better work, I’m telling you! 1973 Penthouse (May) 62: Oh my God, I’ve got to come back tomorrow and do this fucker again. 1976 in S. Mack Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies (unpaged): Sixteen out of 178 of us got in! It’s a fucker isn’t it! 1980 W. Kotzwinkle Jack in the Box 156: She’ll burn up the competition.… It’s one fucker of an engine. 1980 in Penthouse (Jan. 1981) 173: He wanted me to wear this schoolgirl rig and shoes—and shine the fuckers first. 1981–85 S. King It 30: Just give me the fucker. 1987 W. D. Blankenship Bloo
d Stripe 68: Took me five years to earn that fucker. 1992 G. Wolff Day at Beach 180: You fucking get the fucker up, Dad. 2000 D. Eggers Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 435: You slash away with that fucker [sc. a frisbee], it’s such a violent act, throwing that white thing, you’re first cradling it to your breast and then then you whip that fucker as hard as you possibly can while keeping it level, keeping it straight. 2008 A. Davies Mine All Mine 149: “It’s just the brass. It ejected funny.” “Brass?” “The shell.” “Fucker is hot.”

  fuckerware party noun [FUCK + (Tupp)erware party]

  Especially Homosexuals. a gathering of women for the group use or purchase of sexual toys.

  1983 G. Davis Romance 63: The nicest women on the Peninsula get together for what they themselves have labelled Fuckerware parties, where a representative comes equipped with Benoit balls, edible underwear, all manner of lubricious devices for sale. 1985 Hustler (Nov.): She joins Erica Boyer, Beverly Bliss and Barbie Dahl in a “fuckerware” party. As the girls try on lingerie and sample lotions, body paints and sex toys, the party breaks out in a rash of dueling dildos. 1986 Playboy (Nov.) 25: The authors attend a fundamentalist sex seminar…, a fuckerware party and other events. 1990 S. Bright Susie Sexpert’s Lesbian Sex World 47: How many of you have attended a home sex toy presentation with a group of friends? They’re called fuckerware parties in the business. 1998 T. Dalzell Slang of Sin 177: Fuckerware party…a women’s party where sex toys are displayed and sold.