[1891 in J. F. Dobie Rainbow in the Morning (1965) 172: Talk about one thing, talk about another;/But ef you talk about me, I’m gwain to talk about your mother.] [1929 E. Hemingway in Selected Letters 298: In a purely conversational way in a latin language in an argument one man says to another “Cogar su madre!”] 1937 C. Odets Golden Boy 243: [On telephone:] I’ll bring him right over…you can take my word—the kid’s a cock-eyed wonder …your mother too! 1939 in A. Dundes Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel (1990) 288: An upper-class Negro woman [in a northern city] said…[that] in her high school group…a simple reference to “your ma” or “your mother” was a fighting challenge. The woman herself did not know why one had to fight when she heard this but did know that fight one must. 1953 “F. Paley” Rumble on the Docks 86: “Your mother!” Pooch murmured with thick lips. 1957 H. Simmons Corner Boy 79: Your mother, your mother. 1968 K. Hunter Soul Brothers 39: If a Southside boy wanted to start a fight, all he had to say…was, “Your mother—.” He didn’t even have to finish the sentence. The other boy would tear into him…in a blind fury. 1972 in W. King Black Anthology 145: “Your motha’!” she yelled. 1973 Lucas, Katz & Huyck America Graffiti 23: “What happened to you, flathead?” “Ah, your mother!” 1974 V. C. Strasburger Rounding Third & Heading Home 159: Carter turned around. “Your mother,” he said to the guy who had just finished talking. 1977 E. Bunker Animal Factory 29: “I’m gonna bust you someday.” “You’ll bust your mother.” “Your mother wears combat boots!” 1978 P. Schrader Hardcore 65: “You’re thinking about your father.”…“Keep him out of this or I’ll break your balls.” “Who?” “Your mother, smart-ass.” 1985 Cheers (NBC-TV): Ya mother! 1999 F. McCourt ’Tis xv. 118: Weber gives him the finger and says, Your mother, and Buck has to be stopped from attacking him by the duty sergeant who tells us all get out.
mother adjective
(a partial euphemism for) MOTHERFUCKING.
1958 Meltzer & Blees High School Confidential (film): You’re the swingin’est chick in the whole mother kingdom. 1962 T. Reiter Night in Sodom 134: You a fool, Chollie. A rotten muvva fool. 1966–67 P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets 201: What a sick mudder scene! 1968 G. Vidal Myra Breckinridge 98: I am going to sell the whole mother score. ca1969 D. Rabe Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel 23: Jesus God Almighty I hate this mother army stickin’ me in with weird people! 1970 La Motta, Carter, & Savage Raging Bull (film) 25: Everybody down on his knees, you mothers, down on your fuckin’ mother knees! 1971 Go Ask Alice 102: The fuzz has clamped down till the town is mother dry. 1976 J.W. Thomas Heavy Number 44: Wait a mother-minute! Ibid. 115: I…can’t use them…in the middle of the mother desert! 1988 D. Ing Chernobyl Syndrome 113: A bigmotha’ windmill, with 4-meter epoxy-coated high-aspect ratio blades and a capstan drive made from a wheelchair.
motherfather noun
(a partial euphemism for) MOTHER-FUCKER.
1991 Redd Foxx on Royal Family (CBS-TV): Oh, motherfather! 1993 S. Womack Dead Folks’ Blues 231: What the motherfather you talking about? 2005 C. Coleman Cage’s Bend 204: You son of a bitch. You don’t care about me. You motherfather!
motherfouler noun
(a partial euphemism for) MOTHER-FUCKER.
1947–52 R. Ellison Invisible Man 422: Coolcrack the motherfouler! 1962 L. Hughes Tambourines to Glory 238: Sister Laura’s going to crack-up and all over Buddy Lomax—who everybody knows is a motherfouler.
motherfuck noun
1. = MOTHERFUCKER, noun, sense 1.a., 1.b.
1964 R. Gover Here Goes Kitten 110: I hop back in bed beside this great big mountain of a mothahfug, an I get down t’bizness. 1967 N. Mailer Why We Are in Vietnam 54: Don’t come near, motherfuck. 1970 E. E. Landy Underground Dictionary 135: Mother fuck, greeting to another person. It has a positive connotation… Negative connotation when used in anger to express hostility—e.g. You mother fuck! 1972 N.Y.U. Cold Duck (Apr. 17): Fuck you, motherfuck, you’re trying to censor my work! 1978 P. Schrader Hardcore 99: You muthafuck! 1986 D. Tate Bravo Burning 96: Hey, motherfucks, you don’t have to treat him like that. a1990 E. Currie Dope & Trouble 14: She a grown motherfuck. 2000 T. A. Kessler D-Girl in Sopranos ((TV shooting script) 2nd Ser.) 42: You miserable motherfuck, I’m the kid’s [confirmation] sponsor!
2. a thing or state of affairs, esp. if hateful or infuriating; = MOTHERFUCKER, noun, sense 2.a., 2.b.
1967 N. Mailer Why Are We in Vietnam? 82: How’d you get this motherfuck? 1982 J. M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley 271: How they gonna get a bird inta the middle a dis mothafuck?
3.a. a damn.
1967 “Iceberg Slim” Pimp 277: I wouldn’t give a mother-fuck. 1970 in B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water & Swim Like Me 232: This is my friend,/this is my kin,/I don’t give a motherfuck/if he don’t come in. 1972 W. Pelfrey Big V 106: And I don’t give a motherfuck. 1984 S. P. Smith American Boys 147: Tell ’em I’m like Donald Duck—got web feet and don’t give a motherfuck! 1992 S. Frazier I Married Vietnam 94: You ever do that again motherfucker I’ll kill you. I don’t give a motherfuck if you got one day and a wakeup. 2006 R. Shydner & M. Schiff I Killed 49: We’re not leaving until we get our motherfucking money. I don’t give a motherfuck.
b. (used as an emphatic expletive); hell; FUCK.—used with the.
1975 N. De Mille Smack Man 70: How the motherfuck do a pimp’s girl get jealous, man? 1973–76 J. Allen Assault 188: You better get the motherfuck out of my place. 1982 J. M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley 309: Where the motherfuck is the C-4? 1986 T. Philbin Under Cover 120: Who the motherfuck are you? 1988 J. Norst Colors 22: What the motherfuck was that you just did. 1994 S. Hunter Dirty White Boys 150: You got nothing but a staff of assholes what hates their goddamned jobs and ain’t about to die for no Denny, whosoever the motherfuck he may be. 2006 J. Burke On the Road to Kandahar 143: I’m on fucking patrol.… Why do you think I am wearing my body armor, motherfucker? For the motherfucking fun? So shut the motherfuck up.
motherfuck adverb
(used for emphasis); = MOTHERFUCKING.
1970 E. Sanders in Padgett & Shapiro New York Poets 386: And don’t you motherfuck forget it!!! 1971 S. Stevens Way Uptown in Another World 54: The motherfuck whites don’t never look close enough at a black man to tell how old he is.
motherfuck verb
1. (used to express rejection, dismissal, hatred, etc.); God damn; FUCK, verb, definition 4a; curse; to hell with.
1942 in W. N. Hess B-17 32: [Inscription on U.S. bomber, with picture of Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo receiving an obscene gesture:] MFUTU [i.e. mother fuck you too]. 1965 in Social Problems XIII 351: Mother Fuck the Police! 1969 Black Panther (Oakland, Calif.): Well, motherfuck the police. 1972 B. Davidson Cut Off 29 [refers to 1944]: Mother-fuck this fuckin’ war. 1968–73 M. Agar Ripping & Running 137: Aw man, mother-fuck it. 1975 S.P. Smith American Boys 37: “Three tears in the bucket,” he yelled. “They don’t flow, mother fuck it!” 1977 E. Torres Q & A 16: Motha fuck you, ain’t tellin’ you shit. Who the hell’re you! 1989 C. Ridenhour et al. Fight the Power (song, perf. “Public Enemy”) in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992) 259: Straight up racist that sucker was simple and plain/Mother-fuck him [sc. Elvis] and John Wayne/’Cause I’m black and I’m proud. 1994 J. Berendt Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 114: If I offended anyone, two tears in a bucket, honey. Motherfuck it. 2000 J. Womack Going, Going, Gone 23: Half the room turned to look, and then the same half of the room turned deaf mute. “Motherfuck you,” she broadcast.
2. to destroy, confuse, FUCK UP; to treat with hostility, insult.
1975 in Urban Life IV (1976) 489: We’ll motherfuck the bastard’s mind! 1990 L. Rooke Good Baby 136: That bitch who tried to motherfuck and hogtie me. 1991 Vanity Fair Aug. 169/1: I don’t know if he was “motherfucking” them—if he was still being verbally aggressive. 2000 R. Barger et al. Hell’s Angel vii. 128: We motherfucked them for a while until they finally gave up and drove away. 2007 J. R. Daniels Mr. Pleasant 3: I could read her lips. She was motherfucking me to her little brother.
&n
bsp; motherfuck interjection
(used to express astonishment, anger, etc.).
1970 W. C. Woods Killing Zone 143: Motherfuck—what happened to you? 1976 R. Price Bloodbrothers 20: Mother-fuck! 1979 B. Gutcheon New Girls 249: Motherfuck, guess who that is? 1998 GQ (Nov.) 172: He spins around, kicks the ground, stares down the offending patch of wood. “Mother fuck,” he mutters. 1998 J. Manos Jr. & D. Chase College in Sopranos ((television shooting script) 1st Ser.) 12: Chris’s car jerks to a stop. Jacket over his head, Chris runs to a pay phone, jams his body under the shell, inserts quarters while rain pelts his back. Christopher. Mothefuck. 2005 “Noire” Candy Licker xxvi. 279: “Motherfuck!” Hurricane cursed.
motherfucker noun
1.a. a despicable or contemptible person. [The 1928, 1935, 1939, and 1946 quotations are euphemistic.]
1918 Letter in Journal of American History (1995) LXXXI 1585: You low-down Mother Fuckers can put a gun in our hands but who is able to take it out? [1918 in H. De Witt Bawdy Barrack-Room Ballads: The little red runt he grew and grew/****ed his mother and sister too.] 1928 C. McKay Banjo 229: I’ve been made a fool of by many a skirt, but it’s the first time a mother-plugger done got me like this. 1935 G.W. Henderson Ollie Miss 82: The man from Swanson had passed the ugly word then, and the Hannon boy had flung it back… neatly compounded, with the word “mother” preceding it. The Swanson boy… whipped out his razor. ca1935 in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells were Ringing 95: Motherfucker, I’ll slice off your prick. 1935 in P. Oliver Blues Tradition 232: He’s a dirty mother fuyer, he don’t mean no good. [1936 A. W. Little From Harlem to the Rhine 5 [refers to 1917]: And so I saiz ter him, Cap’n Suh, “Ever-ting you saiz Ah am—yoo is double—even de part against yoo mudder.… Ef yoo saiz anyt’ing mo’ ter me Ah’ll cut yoo heart out.”] 1938 “Justinian” Americana Sexualis 29: Mother-Fucker. n. An incestuous male. The most intense term of opprobrium among the U.S. lower classes. Probable Sicilian origin. C. 20. Urban communities only. No sexual connotation; used merely as an epithet. 1939 in A. Banks First-Person 255: Why you poor Brooklyn motherfrigger, I’ll wreck this goddamn place with you. 1946 M. Mezzrow & B. Wolfe Really the Blues 14: A motherferyer that would cut your throat for looking. 1946 J. Del Torto Graffiti Transcript (Kinsey Institute): Susie is a mother fucker. 1948 N. Mailer Naked & Dead 152: I was gonna shoot the mother-fugger but you were in the way. 1950 Commentary X 62: When asked what his chief duties were in a Negro settlement house for boys, a social worker answered, “Teaching them euphemisms for mother—(unprintable word).” 1954 R. Lindner 50-Minute Hour 152 [refers to ca1938]: During my years in prison work I had observed that one expletive, that referring to intercourse between son and mother (m-f), was at once the most dangerous and the most frequent on the lips of the psychopath. I had actually seen men killed for using it. 1954 in D. Wepman et al. The Life (1976) 110: Cocksuckers by the dozens, motherfuckers and their cousins. 1956 in P. Oliver Blues Tradition 240: Your mama…she’s a runnin’ motherfucker, cheap cocksucker. 1957 H. Simmons Corner Boy 79: Kill that mother fug—. 1958 Stack A Lee (typescript, Kinsey Institute) 1: I’m that bad motherfucker they call Stack A Lee. 1958 E. Gilbert Vice Trap 44: “You mother—” she said to me, crying. 1959 W. Burroughs Naked Lunch 40: I’ll cut your throat you white mother fucker. 1962 J. O. Killens Then We Heard the Thunder 284: Every time I walk up the company street I hear somebody calling somebody else a mother-fucker or a sonofabitch. 1963–64 K. Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion 71: My brother is a motherfucker. 1965 C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land 137: Don’t explain yourself to that mother-fucker. 1965 R. E. Conot Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness 222: Even the word motherfucker takes on different connotation. For the white it is the image of incest; for the Negro it is the picture of a white man lying with a black woman who is his, the Negro’s, mother. 1968 A. Montagu Letter to P. Tamony (June 24): Mr. Donald C. Greason has written to me that he heard the epithet [motherfucker] often from a friend of his at the front during late 1917. 1968 H. Van Dyke Blood of Strawberries 177: If you even touch it, motherfucker, you die. 1968 R. Gover JC 34: Sonny you nacheral sack a twenty diffrent mothahfuggahs. 1971 O. Guffy & C. Ledner Ossie 46 [refers to ca1940]: “You’re a motherfucker.” “Your mama’s one.” 1974 V. E. Smith Jones Men 18: Look at that bitch. Nasty motherfucker. 1992 T. Hosansky & P. Sparling Working Vice 197: People called her motherfucker…[and] bitch. 1995 Jerry Springer Show (syndicated TV series): Come on, motherf-cker! [vowel bleeped out].
b. Especially Black English & Military. (in positive contexts) a fellow; person; an admirable person; (often) a formidable person.
1958 Stack A Lee (typescript, Kinsey Institute) 1: He…said who put the hole in this motherfucker’s head?/Who could the murderer of this poor man be? 1964 R. D. Abrahams Deep down in Jungle (Appendix II) 261: One of the best things which can be said of a man is that he is a “mean motherfucker” or a “tough motherfucker,” but to call him just a “mother-fucker” is to invite reprisal. 1970 E. E. Landy Underground Dictionary 135: Mother fucker… Positive, complimentary name for a friend—e.g., Hey, mother fucker, what’s happening? 1971 in S. D. Horwitt Let Them Call Me Rebel 4 [refers to 1930s]: Pretty soon word of the incident spread throughout the gang. “That Alinsky, he’s an all-right motherfucker,” the kids would say, and… they began to trust me. 1971 J. Cheever in Letters (1988) 284: A puertorican drug-pusher…exclaimed: “Oh what a cool motherfucker was that Machiavelli.” 1972 in W. King Black Anthology 101: Joe was a motherfucker. A revolutionary motherfucker. A black man made of steel iron. 1973 J.R. Coleman Blue-Collar 62: A word like “motherfucker” here is often just a synonym for man, no more and no less. (“Who’s that new motherfucker over there?” or “I told the motherfucker we’d pick up him and his bitch at eight.”) 1973 L. Bangs Canned Heat in Mainlines, Blood Feasts, Bad Taste (2003) 37: Vestine was an incredible, scorching motherfucker of a guitarist, knocking you through the wall. 1973 R. Roth Sand in Wind 154: Hey, motherfuckers, look at this. Ibid. 438: I’ve met some of the best motherfuckers I’ve ever known in the [Marine Corps]. 1972–74 H. Hawes & D. Asher Raise Up off Me 3 [refers to 1930s]: Anybody who looked good was automatically a motherfucker. Ibid. 98: We…talked about Debussy and Bach and what bad motherfuckers those cats were hundreds of years ago. 1974 L. A. Lacy Native Daughter 108: Fine…nice legs…tall…would be a motherfucker if she didn’t talk so much. 1974 V.E. Smith Jones Men 156: I’m just as cool as the next motherfucker. 1977 L. Jordan Hype 44: “C’mere, you little motherfucker,” he said tenderly, reaching for her. 1978 B. Johnson What’s Happenin’? 57: Once I figured out that a “bad mother-fucker” was an all-right dude, I at least had a shot at communicating. 1978 W. Strieber Wolfen 127: You the scaredest motherfucker I’ve seen in a good long while. a1983 J. Baugh Black Street Speech 24: See, like if a brother gets on my case I can tell blood, “Hey motherfucker, you can kiss my ass,” and the brother can…take it in stride—cause he know where I’m comin from. But you can’t be tellin no white dude that. 1987 D. Sherman Main Force 96 [refers to 1966]: “That bad out there, huh?” “Worse, except we’re the baddest mother-fuckers in the valley.” 1984–88 D. Hackworth & J. Sherman About Face 510 [refers to Vietnam War]: In the Airborne, the term “motherfucker,” unless spoken harshly, was among the highest terms of endearment. 1993 Face (Sept.) 141/1: Ice-T recorded an as yet unre-leased version of Sly Stone’s “Don’t Call Me Nigger Whitey” with Perry Farell, who he calls “the ultimate cool motherfucker.” 2003 A. Swofford Jarhead 25: He’s an all right motherfucker.… He’s all right for a reporter.
2.a. an infuriating, hateful, or oppressive thing, difficult task, etc.; (broadly) a thing.
1948 N. Mailer Naked & Dead 345: You know what the mother-fugger’ll be like?…We’ll be lucky to get out of there with our goddam heads on. 1960 J. Peacock Valhalla ch. iv: “I’ll get the motherfuckers [beer cans],” Dallas offered. 1962 B. Jackson In the Life 156: Oh, life’s a motherfucker, Bruce. 1962 T. Berger Reinhart 386: Let me run that big motherfu—. 1967–68 N. von Hoff
man We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 98: The street is a rough motherfucker. 1969 Playboy (Dec.) 290: Let’s burn this motherfucker down. 1973 E. Jong Fear of Flying 4: So I keep concentrating very hard, helping the pilot…fly the 250-passenger motherfucker. 1974 D. Goines Daddy Cool ix. 115: Damn, baby…whose goddamn poolroom is this anyway? To listen to him talk, you’d think he owned the motherfucker! 1975 N. De Mille Smack Man 108: What a motherfucker that’s going to be, given the rules of evidence in this state. 1978 S. King Stand 84: Eight milkshakes (why…had he bought eight of the mother-fuckers?) 1981 L. Heinemann in Harper’s (Aug.) 58: The whole company… caught some mean kind of shit and every swinging dick but him bought the motherfucker. 1981 National Lampoon (July) 16: Being 7’4” is a motherfucker. 1981 Penthouse (Mar.) 174: Heroin is…an insidious motherfucker. 1982 B. Downey Uncle Sam Must be Losing the War 23 [refers to WWII]: Some of them… cussed their native state for being a “prejudiced motherfucker.” 1991 J. Lamar Bourgeois Blues 32: I knew how to make those motherfuckers gleam. 1993 K. Scott Monster 163: The threat of being in prison for life was a muthafucka. 2005 “Noire” Candy Licker xxiii. 241: He tossed me a pair of sunglasses.… “Put these motherfuckers on and make sure you don’t take ’em off.”
b. an infuriating or surprising situation or state of affairs.
1968 in B. Edelman Dear America 81: Sometimes it gets pretty hairy in this motherfucker. 1970 E. E. Landy Underground Dictionary 135: Mother fucker… Hard-to-solve problem; rough situation. 1976 R. E. Chinn Dig the Nigger Up 61: Now ain’t this a muthafucker! 1981 W. T. Hathaway World of Hurt 14: This is the dumbest motherfucker I ever been in. 1987 J. Ferrandino Firefight 98: I don’t want to die in this miserable mother-fucker. 1989 Z. Chafets Devil’s Night 44: We’ll probably never solve the motherfucker. 1989 S. Robinson & D. Ritz Smokey 78: We’re going to remember this motherfucker…’cause I don’t intend to let it happen again. 1994 T. Woods True to Game xiii. 152: Where’s Bridgette, ’cause she could get her ass kicked next up in this motherfucker.
The F-Word Page 31