cunt

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See also:CuntandCúnt

English

EnglishWikipediahas an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

Etymology

FromMiddle Englishcunte,queynt,queynte,fromOld English*cunte,fromProto-Germanic*kuntǭ.Cognate withWest Frisiankunte,Middle Dutchconte(Dutchkont(“butt”)), dialectalSwedishkunta,dialectalDanishkunte,andIcelandickunta.A relationship toLatincunnushas not been conclusively shown. LexicographerPartridgesuggestscuneus(“a wedge”).

Pronunciation

Noun

cunt(countableanduncountable,pluralcunts)

  1. (vulgar,countable)The femalegenitalia,especially thevulva.
    • 1928,D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence,chapter XII, inLady Chatterley’s Lover,[Germany?]:Privately printed,→OCLC:
      An' doesn't ter know?Cunt!It's thee down theer; an' what I get when I'm i'side thee, and what tha gets when I'm i'side thee; it's a' as it is, all on't.
    • 1983,Lawrence Durrell,Sebastian(Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published2004,page1138:
      Ah! This power-house of human misery and ecstasy, thecunt!
    • 1962[1959],William S. Burroughs,Naked Lunch,New York: Grove Press,page80:
      Blind boys grope out of huge pies, deteriorated schizophrenics pop from a rubbercunt,boys with horrible skin diseases rise from a black pond (sluggish fish nibble yellow turds on the surface).
    • 1991,Ted Tally,The Silence of the Lambs(motion picture), spoken by Miggs (Stuart Rudin):
      I can smell yourcunt.
    • 2004June 23, Leo Benedictus, “A bit of hanky-panky”, inThe Guardian:
      Then there is a drum roll, and I watch open-mouthed as she bends over and produces a string of red cloths from her femininity. "What better way to celebrate 10 years of Camberwell Arts Week than pulling 10 red handkerchiefs out of mycunt?"she asks.
    • 2014,“Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel”,performed by Behemoth:
      I saw the Virgin'scuntspawning forth the snake
  2. (vulgar,offensive,originallysynecdochically,countable)An extremelyunpleasantorobjectionableperson (in US, especially a woman; in Commonwealth more usually a man).
    Near-synonyms:bitch;see alsoThesaurus:jerk
    • 1994[1993],Irvine Welsh,Trainspotting,London: Minerva,→ISBN,page 5:
      The taxi driver wisnae amused. He looked a rightcunt.Maist ay them do. The stamp-peyin self-employed ur truly the lowest form ay vermin oan god’s earth.
    • 2002,Jim Goad,Shit Magnet - One Man's Miraculous Ability to Absorb the World's Guilt,page196:
      Anne says that the only way she can rebel against her longsuffering hippie parents is by being a homeless, hatemongering, drug-addicted assholecunt.
    • 2007,Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth A. Cole, Kai Struve,Shared History, Divided Memory,page287:
      Vinokur pulled the trigger a second and third time. "You're lying, you Polishcunt!"he screamed.
    • 2009November 12, Patrick Barkham, “Top Gear: Why We're Mad About the Boys”, inThe Guardian:
      He rails against political correctness and health and safety regulations, and earlier this summer was accused of calling Gordon Brown "acunt"in unbroadcast comments to his Top Gear audience, whom he has also referred to as" oafs ".
  3. (UK,Ireland,Commonwealth,countable,vulgar)Anobjectionableobject or item.
    Fix the car? I’ll sort thecuntout at the weekend.
  4. (Ireland,UK,Commonwealth,countable,vulgar)Anunpleasantordifficultexperience or incident.
    • 1980,Stephen King,The Mist:
      The lines were up past the frozen food now; people had to cut through to get what they wanted and there was much excuse-me-ing and pardon-me-ing. “This is going to be acunt,”Norton said morosely, and I frowned a little.
    • 2016July 11, Rachel Braier,The Guardian:
      Certain situations just cry out for it – keys breaking in the lock, not being able to find the starting point in a roll of sticky-tape, running out of bin-bags. The kind of everyday annoyances that Alanis Morissette would define as irony are actuallycuntsas far as I’m concerned.
  5. (vulgar,synecdochically,countableanduncountable)Awomanor any receptive sexual partner, as a source of potential or actual sexual gratification.
    I'm going to hit the clubs and see if I can get me somecunt.
  6. (Ireland,UK,Commonwealth,vulgar,positive,countable;with wordsfunny,good)A person (mostly between male friends); comparebastard.
    Yes, I do remember Dave; he was onefunny cunt.
    Tom's agood cunt:he fixed my car and didn't even charge me for it!
  7. (transgenderslang)Theanusof atrans woman.
  8. (transgenderslang,usually in theplural)Theinguinal canalsof atrans woman.

Usage notes

  • Writing in 1961, Partridge notes the term had been avoided "in written and polite spoken English" since the 15th century and had been considered obscene since around 1700. Partridge further notes the term's absence from the 1932Universal Dictionary of Englishand the 1933Shorter Oxford Dictionary,and he himselfbowdlerizesit asc*nt.
  • In many English-speaking countries, "cunt" is considered to be the most offensiveswear word:a study by several British broadcasting organizations found that it was the most offensive swear word, with 96% classing it as severe;[1]a similar study by New Zealand'sBroadcasting Standards Authorityfound that it was the most offensive word there, offending 74% of New Zealanders.[2]
  • In the US, wherecuntis most often used as an insult towards women, the word is also likely to be taken as amisogynisticslurand its use can cause controversy even in contexts where vulgar language is otherwise acceptable. In the US in the 21st century then-wordand thec-wordare widely ranked as the most offensive words in the language. In Commonwealth countries, the word – although still considered offensive – is not generally interpreted as misogynistic or indicating specific hatred towards women.[3]

Quotations

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

cunt(third-person singular simple presentcunts,present participlecunting,simple past and past participlecunted)

  1. (generallyvulgar)To use the word "cunt".
    • 2007,Robert Minhinnick,Sea Holly,Seren Books:
      [...] and boy I can hear every word from behind my tree because that plot of hers is close to the road and she's fucking it and she'scuntingit and you never heard a woman talking like that, not sober anyway[...]
    • 2016September 27, Peter Stothard,The Senecans: Four Men and Margaret Thatcher,Abrams,→ISBN:
      Anyone whom he told to piss off was grateful not to have beencuntedinstead.
    • 2017September 21, Chris Heath, quotingRobbie Williams,Reveal: Robbie Williams - As close as you can get to the man behind the Netflix Documentary,Bonnier Publishing Ltd.,→ISBN:
      I wanted to provoke something in him so that he would hit me first, so I went over andcuntedhim off left, right and centre. He was a Scouser - I called him a Scouse cunt.
  2. (vulgar)To attack someone.
    • 2009September 23, Peter Bradshaw, “The irony about Nick Love's Outlaw DVD commentary”, inThe Guardian‎[3]:
      Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry was indeed described as "fascist", notably by Pauline Kael, although there is no real evidence that Scorsese's Taxi Driver was "cunted"on first release – on the contrary, despite continuing misgivings about violence, that film was surely widely praised from the very first, getting the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
    • 2022October 28, Gregory Ashe,A Fault against the Dead,Hodgkin and Blount,→ISBN:
      “I wanted him to leave me alone,” Baby said. “I wasn't actually going to, you know.”
      “Cunthim?” Theo said. Baby flinched.
  3. (vulgar)To ruin something; tofuck up.
    • 2015September 17, Charles Higson,King Of The Ants,Hachette UK,→ISBN:
      ... 'We were going to. Duke gave you the ticket, it was all set. And then youcuntedthe whole plan, didn't you? You killed the bastard.'
    • 2018July 10, Keith Gessen,A Terrible Country: A Novel,Penguin,→ISBN:
      “If I'd said things in Russia werecunted,that would mean bad.”
  4. (vulgar)To betray someone.
    • 2005,Darren Murphy,Tabloid Caligula,Oberon Books:
      JOE: Youcuntedme.
      ROBERT: Language. Not in here.
      JOE: You lied.
    • 2010April 3, Richard Perilly,Villains,Lulu.com,→ISBN,page189:
      Youcuntedus, and I'm gonna make you pay, cos you shit on us Pete.
    • 2017February 4, Alex Clark, “I'm no pussy when it comes to swearing”, inThe Guardian‎[4]:
      One of my favourite ever instances of its deployment was at a particularly troublesome roundabout, when a driver of my acquaintance uttered the deathless phrase: “Right: it’scuntor becunted.”
  5. (vulgar)To take something into one's vulva or vagina.
    • 1977,John Harris,Against the Day of the Dead:
      How shecuntshis finger as if it were a close friend
    • 1998,Evan Dara,The Lost Scrapbook,University of Alabama Press,→ISBN,page230:
      I am pushing towards him, against him, yearning to open up against his entire face, tocunthim entirely, to feel the full warm liquid merging

Adjective

cunt(notcomparable)

  1. (LGBTQslang)Amazing or very good.
    • [2022,Lauron J. Kehrer,Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities, and Contemporary Performance,page59:
      As noted above, "cunt"or" cunty "has evolved in Ballroom parlance to mean exactly whatBanksdefines it as: feminine and strong.]
    • 2022December 29, PeachyPlumz (on reddit), in "Symmetra is a ‘gay icon’?",Reddit:
      Look at her like how can you not saycunt[,] she'scunt
    • 2023May 24, cutehammie (on reddit), in "Trans ally Azealia", r/popheadscirclejerk,Reddit:
      she's soCUNT... like... how can i not say cunt???

References

  1. ^“"Delete expletives? "”, in(Please provide the book title or journal name)‎[1],2015 February 19 (last accessed), archived fromthe originalon24 September 2015
  2. ^What Not to Swear
  3. ^Jo Livingstone (2018 June 5) “What’s So Bad About the C-Word?”, inNew Republic‎[2]

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

cunt

  1. Alternative form ofcunte

Old Dutch

Etymology

FromProto-Germanic*kunþaz.

Adjective

cunt

  1. known,familiar

Inflection

This adjective needs aninflection-table template.

Derived terms

Descendants

  • Middle Dutch:cont

Further reading

  • “kunt”,inOudnederlands Woordenboek,2012
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