Curse Word Origins

If one claims she can say “I love you” in five languages, it’s a sure win if you bet she can say F*** in ten other languages. All across this planet, swear words are the easiest to remember. In fact, they are the first words you will learn if you study a foreign language.

Name calling, blasphemy, profanity, etc. Do you even know that back in the day of your great-great-great-granma that “good day” is such an offensive term? Well, it is. But more than just having a good day, curse words have a lot of history tied with it.

The F*** word

It literally means act of sexual intercourse in modern English, commonly used to describe or emphasize obscenity in social context.

The etymology (study of word origins) is uncertain, however, the English Oxford Dictionary presents some probabilities:

• Flen Flyys and Freris is a 1500 poem in mixed English and Latin, with one mention of the f*** word on one line.
• John de Fucker is a 1278 AD man’s name, but Oxford claims the sources are not that credible.
• Anglo-Saxon word Fuccerham, which translates to either home (ham) of the f***ers, or enclosed pasture (hamm) of the f***ers.
• German word ficken, which has basically the same literal meaning.
• Dutch word fokken, meaning to breed, strike, or to beget.
• Norwegian fukka, or to copulate
• Swedish fokka, which translates to “strike or to copulate” and fock, which is a very graphic description of the male genitalia
• Latin futuere, meaning almost exactly as the English verb version of the f*** word. But some doubt it as the word futuere must have other origins.
• Another Latin word facere, which means “to do”
• Or the Greek word phyō (φυω) which has various meanings such as (man) to beget, or (woman) to give birth.
• Some even claims it means Fornication Under Consent of the King, but as far as all acronym goes, credibility is low.