The F-Word

by Jesse Sheidlower

A skillfully updated edition of The F-Word which renders a comprehensive portrait of English's most notorious and colorful word.

No word has generated more uses, more creative euphemisms, and more strong opinions than fuck. Jesse Sheidlower's historical dictionary, now in print for over 25 years, charts the uses of fuck and its many permutations, from absofuckinglutely to zipless fuck. It illustrates every sense of every entry with quotations, from the earliest that can be found to a recent example, showing exactly how the word has been used throughout history.

This new edition is not just a minor update but a comprehensive revision of Sheidlower's groundbreaking text for the internet age. Major new discoveries push back the known history of fuck by almost two hundred years. Sheidlower also considers rapidly changing attitudes towards the use of fuck in public discourse. The volume includes over 2,500 new quotations; over 150 new antedatings (earlier examples of existing entries, improving our understanding of the word's development); and over 150 entries, including high-profile recent uses such as AF 'as fuck', fuckboi, and the group of expressions of the sort to give no fucks or zero fucks given.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Reference, Linguistics, History, Humor, Microhistory

501 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 3, 1995

Reviews

[Eastofoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent dictionary of the F-word. It includes a brief history and then in dictionary form it shows the myriad of expressions that are an off-shoot of it. It also indicates the origin of the expression, an example in a sentence as well as the year it became popular (when known).

A dictionary AND potential party pleaser, what more could you want ;)

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

WARNING:IF YOUR OFFENDED BY THE F-WORD, READ NO FURTHER.

This is a very enjoyable book. Thank you C, for corrupting this good Catholic boy.:)
If you love words, history, how our outlook changes over time, or just like the word fuck and it's many variants, this is a book for you.

I remember having a close friend over for dinner. He is a Monsignor and now works at the Vatican. I said that sometimes the f-bomb is a cathartic release, to which he agreed. There is no other word with the power of release like the f-word.
This interesting dictionary and introduction shows it is indeed a very unique word.
If you love words, this shows what an exhaustive study of a word can unearth. A word which just until recently could not be printed. Ulysses and Lady Chatterley's Lover had their legal struggles.

It also shows how alive language is. The f-word and many variants have come alive and continue to be born. Like the term bug-fucker, which refers to someone having a rather diminutive sexual appendage, or fuck-wit for someone being or doing something rather stupid. The list goes on and on.

This book is worth the little time it takes to read it, and you can go back to it again and again, to find that perfect f-word variation.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still think this is one of the greatest F***ing dictionaries! Looked up an expression and just kept flipping pages and next thing I knew two hours had disappeared. What more can you ask from a book?

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What intrigued me about The F-word was that it was written by Jesse Sheilder, former Principal North American Editor of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). Obviously, he is familiar with a lot of interesting words, so if he felt a need to write a book about this one, I am not one to second guess.

One downfall of reading via an e-reader is not being able to easily flip through a book before setting out. Thus, I did not know that The F-word is primarily a dictionary of F-terms.

The first 40pp or so introduce the usage of the term (along with considerable attention given to the C-word) through its known etymological introduction into verbal and written usage. The examination follows origin, usage in plays and books then literary and news periodicals and finally to film and television. This is rather more fascinating than expected.

The rest of the book is a compilation of the authors know usage variations, compiled alphabetically from A-Z. Or actually from absofuckinglutely through zipless fuck. Each of the hundreds of terms are defined and originated. Although it is fun to look up a few old favorites, reading each would get rather monotonous, so I can's say I actually read all of this book. Still, it might be a good resource to have on hand the next time I have a need to be as eloquent as possible when telling someone to fuck off.

[Sherry Sharpnack · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a fairly thorough dictionary of the f-word in all its permutations. I should give it more stars for its thoroughness, but the repetition was just mind-numbing. I shouldn’t have finished it, b/ what a waste of my time, other than the first 50 pages w/ it’s history and etymology of the f-word. Read something else, and pass on this one.

[Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best. Reference book. Ever. Great historical and literary citations. You'll learn some new and useful expressions and settle once and for all that argument over whether fist f*** is one word, two words, or hyphenated.

[Julie theriault]

it was interesting

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a former undergraduate linguistics instructor (and someone who once used the expression "absofuckinglotutely" to illustrate the morphology of infixes), I found this very interesting, but truthfully, I wasn't aware when I started reading it that it was a dictionary. I was expecting interesting anecdotes about the various uses of the word throughout history and possibly some information about changing standards over time of what and what does not consititute vulgarity. Instead, after a short introduction, the book presents, in alphabetical order, various derived words and phrases containing "the f word." I did enjoy that each word or phrase included both the earliest available example of its usage and the most recent. Through this, it was possible to see the uses that have changed or fallen out of favor, some of which are very amusing, and also to reflect on the fact that modern vulgar expressions have a long precedent. Interesting also how much Norman Mailer seemed to have contributed to the world of vulgarity. All in all, it's not a bad book, but it functions best as an odd reference book rather than a pleasure read.

[Kevin Maness · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really finish this book. I got to the F section of the dictionary portion that dominates the book, and I decided that reading a dictionary—any dictionary—isn't really all that fun. Reading one that often reads like badly written amateur web porn is that much less fun (unless that's definitely your thing).

I guess I was hoping for more of an exploration of how words get to be "bad." More of a cultural analysis of "vulgarity" and the implications for language once a word or phrase has been deemed unspeakable, unprintable, unairable, etc. How western cultures went from concern about inappropriate use of religious language to almost any use of body-part or sexual language. I wanted a study, and I got an OED outtake.

I do think that some people would enjoy reading this, and there were some funny variations I'd never heard of before. I especially appreciated seeing the non-American variants. And I kind of liked seeing examples from things I'd seen or read (unsurprisingly, David Simon's TV series made frequent appearances).

Too bad, though. I'm fucking disappointed.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected a history and received a dictionary. Of course, I didn't read all the references for each entry, but scanning and sampling from each was very entertaining. Unfortunately, I can't remember which author was quoted as saying he'd like to write short stories as much as he'd like to screw a chicken, but the image is memorable. I only added a few new words to my list and focused on those, like pigfuck, that reflect a particular time and/or culture. (Apparently, pigfuck/noise rock was the bridge from punk to grunge.) I highly recommend this dictionary for writers because it includes examples from particular subcultures, like the American military. I also think it'd be helpful for non-native English speakers because it translates the meaning of colloquial phrases like hot enough to screw, which I wouldn't have interpreted as being angry.

[Phillip Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book caught my eye when I was browsing round a bookshop a few years ago. Well it is quite eye-catching - what with it being bright yellow and having the asterisked legend 'f***' embossed in black on the cover.

The editor, Jesse Sheidlower lives in Manhattan with "his wife, his dog, his two razor-clawed cats, and a f#@k of a lot of books." He describes this book as: "the complete history of the word in all its robust and various uses" and claims that: "this book contains every sense of fuck, and every compound word or phrase of which fuck is a part."

"I like to think," he said in an interview, "that in the future people will be more offended by violence than by language." Hear, hear!

If you would not wish your servants to read a line like: "I'm not just my lady's fucker, after all," then this book (and this review) is not for you.

After an introduction offering a potted history of the F-word and its first appearances in print and on television, what we have here is an A-Z of Effing, from Absofuckinglutely to Zipless Fuck (apparently coined by Erica Jong in her 1973 book "Fear of Flying" to describe an unemotional act of intercourse.) To give you an example, here is one of my favourite entries:

HORSE-FUCKING /adjective/ huge.
a1968 in Legman "Rationale" p.549: Two great horse-fucking volumes.

Just one of many wonderful expressions the bloody Bowdlerizing po-faced anti-swearing brigade would like to deprive us of. ('scuse my gramma - she's not well.) Oh I'm sorry, am I being childish? So much is in the ear of the beholder anyway. I don't think that anyone ever suggested Kenneth Williams was being vulgar when he used his catchphrase: "Ooh stop muckin' about" even though Ernest Hemingway had already used "mucking" as a euphemism - perhaps even as an abbreviation of motherfucking:

"...muck this whole treacherous muck-faced mucking country and every mucking Spaniard in it on either side and to hell for ever." For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) chapter 35.

And when Samuel Johnson famously excluded vulgarities from his dictionary, it lead to a memorable exchange. A lady complimented him for leaving out such offensive words, to which he replied:

"No, Madam, I hope I have not daubed my fingers.
I find, however, that you have been looking for them."

Indeed, many dictionary compilers preferred to leave their tomes incomplete rather than print offensive words until quite recently. The Oxford English Dictionary excluded the F and C words until 1972 - although they had included Windfucker (a type of kestrel). There is also a fuck-you lizard, so named because of it's call.

Inevitably this book is full of barrack room slang and unpleasantries, but it is educational - I certainly learned a few things from reading it! For example, I didn't know that lighting one cigarette from another is called a "Dutch fuck" and that a "French fuck" is something very different. Call me naive, but I'd never even heard of a "fuckerware party". Ann Summers has a lot to answer for!

Each entry includes chronologically ordered examples of it's usage in books or films. Some books are referenced an extraordinary number of times, such as "Bawdy Verse" (1610) and "Love and Drollery" (1650), while "The Romance of Lust" (1866) and "Stag Party" (1888) sound particularly suitable for anyone with a really filthy mind.

Surprisingly, fuck is NOT an Anglo-Saxon word as we have always been led to believe. It was probably borrowed from Low German, French, Flemish or Dutch sometime in the fifteenth century. Similar words from Europe which may be related (illegitimately?) include:-

•the German word 'ficken' (meaning to copulate)
•the Middle Dutch word 'fokken' (to thrust or copulate with)
•the Swedish words 'fock' (penis) and 'focka' (to strike or push)
•and the Norwegian word 'fukka' (to copulate)

So you can forget the myth about it being an acronym (for Forced Unsolicited Carnal Knowledge, for example.) However, talking of acronyms, there are plenty of those in this book and I think some of them could come in handy here on the net...

•FYFI (For Your Information) here are a few of my favourites:-

•AMF ........ Adios Mother...
•BFD ........ Big Flaming Deal.
•BUF ........ Big Ugly Freak.
•NFG ........ No Flaming Good.
•NFW ....... No Feasible Way.

•SNAFU .... Situation Normal - All Fouled Up.
•TARFU .... Things Are Really Fouled Up.
•FUBAR .... Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.
•FUBB ...... Fouled Up Beyond Belief.

Some of those words have been changed to protect their identity by the way, which brings me to the subject of euphemisms:- Feck you, flak you, forget you, fork you, fug you; frapping this, freaking that, fricking the other, etc. The oldest must be 'frig' - Robbie Burns used it in 1786, and it had already popped up many times before then.

When Norman Mailer published The Naked and the Dead in 1947 he was forced to use that rather embarrassing euphemism 'fug'. How he must (not) have laughed when he met the renowned wit Dorothy Parker and she greeted him as "the man who can't spell fuck". Anyway, I think it's time for me to "stop this futzing around" as Ronald Reagan once said.

This is a serious lexicographical work (with the emphasis on the graphic) so I do apologize if you have found this review a bit tedious. If that is the case then fuck you and the horse you rode in on - if you will pardon my French/Low German/Middle Dutch/whatever.


[This review was adapted from one I originally posted on dooyoo.co.uk in July 2001]

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This rather serious study of THE four-letter word is in two parts: an overview of the word's history and acceptance in dictionaries and print and then a dictionary of the word, including variants and phrases. There are many, many sources for the entries and I applaud the author for bringing this level of scholarship and research to such a singular word.

[Michael]

Disappointing. I bought this blind following a newspaper review, but expected more sociological exploration of the way changing tolerance reflects changing social mores, altered priorities in communication, sexual reticence v liberality and so on. Really there was little more than glimpse of those issues and then a multitudinous page dictionary of past examples.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't remember acquiring this or my reason for doing so, but I clearly didn't understand what the fuck I was getting. I probably thought this was another cheeky pop-sci exploration of language which I've enjoyed from time to time, but this is a straight up fucking reference book. Literally, it's a Fucking Dictionary. I'm such a fuckwit that I was deep into the long introduction at the beginning before I realized the page numbers were roman numerals and flipped ahead to see what the actual book was. As a Veteran reading through the many usages & definitions, I was pleased by how many are attributed to the military, and occasionally the Navy/Marine Corps specifically.
I will have to find a good candidate to re-gift this to. I feel confident that I've already mastered the titular F-word.

[Christie · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book, the reader learns a bit about the history of the F-word (yes that f-word); where it came from, when it first appeared in the English language, and some of the more interesting times it has been involved in historical events. The rest of the book is a dictionary of various forms and sayings that include the F-word.

I knew the book was mostly a dictionary from the beginning. What I did not know is how boring that dictionary would be. I was expecting a bit more of an explanation beyond here is their word or phrase, here is the definition, and here are a great deal of sentences that use this word/phrase completely out of context. I skimmed most of the book and found it interesting, but not great reading. I would have liked the book to be more like the introduction that gave a lot more history. I also found it odd that some of the most common use cases of the F-word were not included, such as WTF, STFU, GTFO, and FML. The edition of the book I read was published in 2007, so it stands to reason that some of those "text-speak" acronyms would have been in common usage then. Yet the most obscure phrases were included, things that I have never heard which I guess is great if you are looking for new and creative ways to express yourself.

I did find the introduction of the book entertaining and great. The history of the word and its changing meaning through time was great to learn. This is a good reference book if you are looking up the history of phrases or what an odd phrase means. I recommend this book to those who are very interested in the history of language and words, especially words that many respectable books will just pretend doesn't exist.

Read Harder Challenge: Read a microhistory.

[Juliet Jeske · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mini-dictionary about the most scandalous word in American English. I don't know if goodreads even allows the use of the word in a review so I will simply refer to it as f*ck. This edition also includes words derived from f*ck used in other English speaking countries, such as Australia, The United Kingdom and Canada.

It is not a joke book, it won't cause you to fall over in fits of laughter, but if you honestly need a reference book for all things f*ck this is it. Extremely well researched and easy to read but not the type of book you will read cover to cover. It is more likely something you will pull from the shelf when trying to settle an argument about the origin of the word f*ck, or when you want to find a completely ridiculous new word that uses f*ck. I have actually used it as a reference for words that I use in my stand-up, and it does tend to crack people up when they notice it on a book shelf.

[SJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the introduction, it's all about the history of the F word and how it's use has changed and continues to become less and less taboo. Linguists, etymologists and f-bomb-lovers alike can enjoy this book. The bulk of it is a catalog of any and all f-word variations, and each entry includes references. Some of them go back pretty far. It's interesting. My least favorite thing about this book is the foreward by Lewis Black, because he improperly infixes in "unbe-f*cking-lievable", breaking up the root instead of putting it at the morpheme boundary like any English speaker naturally would. To prove my point, I'll just look up un-f*cking-believable on page 267!

But really. I f*cking love this book.

[AskNezka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is basically a dictionary of all manner of use of that one word, some of which I can truly say I had never heard before! There is a great chapter on the historiography/etymology of the word and where it has been used, and the possible origins (still unknown) in late medieval England. The author is Editor-at-Large for the Oxford English Dictionary--meaning he's no slouch--and this is an updated edition of a previous volume. If you love words (and the cathartic use of this one!), I highly recommend.

[Gokycats4 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I read this book on a dare from a friend. For someone who never swears, this was a very entertaining book.....I can see how it would be a great read for a certain "crowd" who want to get all philosophical about rebellionisms and such. I actually did enjoy the book.... I like to know "stuff" and I do everything I can to gather more information into my encyclopedic mind.....so....after reading this...I have enough for the Letter F.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dictionary-style compendium of every thinkable use of one of the most versatile and expressive words in the English language. Seriously! Though eventually I ended up skimming some of the entries (the author uses exhaustive numbers of examples of every variation of, for example, motherf***er) the book gave me a great appreciation for this word and its illustrious history and appreciate it as more than a simple vulgarity.

[Mike Wigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than I expected. Literally every fucking iteration of the word is defined. I'm proud to say the most frequent and creative uses (including one of which could've been me, a 2LT in 1974 saying "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke") come from the military, where dropping F-bombs and breathing are of equal importance.

But on a quasi-serious note a trove of serious literature (mostly American) was referenced, giving me plenty of ideas for future reading.

[Aldean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed when I first saw this book in the book shop, but upon perusal I was surprised and impressed to see that, while certainly amusing, it is also a serious work of thorough scholarship. Both entertaining and enlightening, this volume will never be without a place on my reference shelf (although perhaps I will have to find an out-of-the-way spot for it once the children become literate...)

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the late 1990s I began getting into dictionaries. As I investigated them, read them, and studied them, I came across this book. When I answer Lipton's 10 Questions, the F Word is what I respond is my favorite curse word. This book, mine was the first edition edited by Jesse Sheidlower, is a wonderful reference of the word.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an avid user of the "F word", I knew I had to read this book. Though it's a reference book, I found both the foreword and the introductions quite entertaining and informative. The only meaningful thing I got from this book however, besides a interesting but brief history of the word, were a few new insults to call my friends while drinking beer and playing blackjack. For that, Two Stars!

[Julia Shumulinsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the book is a dictionary, however the intro includes a lot of good information on the origin, growth, and status of the word. Once you get through that (before page 1), the book has pretty much fulfilled its usefulness as anything other than a reference guide.

[Rogelio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly interesting, entertaining and in depth in its analysis of the F-word, wheter you want its origin or new expressions to pepper up your repertoire of colourful language. This effing book is the right one for you!

[John Dalton]

The F-Word (1999)

[Yuliana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Must read for those, like me, who love this word.

[Caty · Rating 2 out of 5]

A forget-me-not from Tammy. The epigraph reads, "If I'm going to corupt you, I may as well go all the way."

[Adrian Colesberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource.