Authors: Jesse Sheidlower
fuck
verb
[English form of a widespread Germanic word; compare Middle Dutch
fokken
‘to thrust, to beget children, copulate with’; Norwegian regional
fukka
‘to copulate’; dialectal Swedish
focka
‘to strike, push, copulate’; and
fock
‘penis’; and German
ficken
‘to copulate’; probably borrowed into English in the fifteenth century from Low German, Flemish, or Dutch; part of a group of words in Germanic languages having the basic meaning ‘move back and forth’, and the common figurative meaning ‘to cheat’; see Introduction for a fuller discussion; the recent forms
fug, fugg
are printed euphemisms and do not represent pronunciation.]
1
.
a
.
transitive
. to engage in heterosexual intercourse involving the penetration of the penis into the vagina with (a person). [The date of the initial citation, from a poem attacking the Carmelite Friars of Ely (a town in Cambridgeshire), may be as early as 1450–75. The poem is written in a garbled mixture of English and Latin, and several English words have pseudo-Latin endings. In the manuscript, the English words in this passage, from
fuccant
(the
-ant
is pseudo-Latin) to
heli
(i.e. Ely) are written in a cipher in which each letter is replaced with the one following it in the alphabet. The cipher suggests that the word was considered taboo even at that time (the word
swive
, a now-archaic vulgarity for sex, was also in cipher). It translates as “They [the monks] are not in heaven/because they fuck the wives of Ely.” For asterisks in 1848 quotation, see note at
FUCKING
,
adjective
.]
a
1500
Flen, Flyys
(ms. Harl. 3362) f. 47, in T. Wright & J. O. Halliwell
Reliquae Antiquae
(1841) I. 91: Non sunt in cœli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk [= fuccant uuiuys of heli].
1730
N. Bailey
Dictionary: To Fuck
…a term used of a goat; also
subagitare foeminam
.
1760
in I. McCormick
Secret Sexualities
109: He asked me, if I never got any girls, or if I never f—ed ’em.
1775
J. Ash
New and Complete Dictionary
:
Fuck
(
v.t. a low vulgar word
) To
perform the act of generation, to have to do with a woman.
1778
in Connor
Songbag
24: He often times fuck’t the old whore in the Night.
1785
F. Grose
Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
:
To f—k
. To copulate.
1848
[G. Thompson]
House Breaker
42: I was going to **** that same little
blowen,
in Boy Jack’s
crib
.
1865
in M. Hodes
White Women, Black Men
142: Did he say he fucked the young gal?
1865
Capt. E. Sellon
New Epicurean
14: I don’t see why I am not to be fucked as well as her!
1872
Contested Election
155: Mr. Miller said to him these words: “You cock-sucking son of a bitch, you have been fucking half of your congregation to-day, keeping two or three whores, and now come here to vote the Reform ticket.”
1877
in P. Y. Stallard
Glittering Misery
(1978) 146: Didn’t you —that girl yourself?
1879
Harlequin Prince Cherrytop
5: Flat on my back he stretched me in the sun,/Fucked me three times, and paid for every one!
1882
Boudoir
226: She f—d me as dry as a stick, last night.
1887
Stanislaus de Rhodes
Autobiography of a Flea
141: “In fact, I want to fuck you, my darling.” Bella saw the huge projection give a flip up. “How nasty you are!—What words you use.”
1922
J. Joyce
Ulysses
III. 729: His wife is fucked yes and damn well fucked too.
1928
D. H. Lawrence
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
iv. 44: Fellows with swaying waists fucking little jazz girls.
1939
H. Miller
Tropic of Capricorn
(1961) 256: I used to fuck her standing up in the vestibule.
1947
J. Kerouac
Letter
(Sept. 13) in
Selected Letters 1940–56
(1995) 127: I’ve met a lot of girls out here, and at least two of them are anxious for me to fuck them.
1964–66
R. Stone
Hall of Mirrors
194: Is she fuckin’ other people?
1966
R. Fariña
Been Down So Long
105: I wasn’t making love to her, I was
fucking
her. The difference is kind, not goddamned degree.
1967
J. Morrison
The End
(rock song, perf. “The Doors”): “Father?” “Yes, son.” “I want to kill you. Mother? I want to fuck you.”
1985
E. Leonard
Glitz
88: Iris was fucking
some
body.
1993
L. Phair
Flower
(pop. song): Every time I see your face…I want to fuck you like a dog.… I’ll fuck you till your dick turns blue.
1996
T. McMillan
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
145: “Well, I didn’t like just
fuck
him.” “Oh, don’t tell me you guys
made love
and shit.” “We did. That’s exactly what we did.” “You fucked him, Stella. Get real.”
2001
S. MacGowan in S. MacGowan & V. M. Clarke
A Drink with Shane MacGowan
76: Then I fucked her afterwards. And that was an amazing fuck cause she was going different colours while I was doing it.
2007
J. Hayes
Precious Blood
272: “I think you’ve been incredibly brave.” “Was that what you were thinking while you were fucking me?”
b.
intransitive
. to engage in heterosexual intercourse involving the penetration of the penis into the vagina.
ca
1500
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.
ca
1550
in D. Lindsay
Satyre
88: Bischops ar blist howbeit that thay be waryit/For thay may fuck thair fill and be unmaryit.
a
1568
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.
ca
1610
in E. J. Burford
Bawdy Verse
(1983) 63: She’s a damn’d lascivious Bitch/And fucks for half-a-crown.
ca
1650
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.
ca
1800
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.
a
1990
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.
ca
1710
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?
ca
1890
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?
ca
2000
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
F
S
.
ca
1677
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
ca
27: 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.