From fuckipedia
False etymologies
One reason that the word
fuck is so hard to trace etymologically is that it was used far more extensively in common speech than in easily traceable written forms. There are several
urban-legend false etymologies postulating an
acronymic origin for the word. None of these acronyms was ever recorded before the 1960s, according to the authoritative
lexicographical work
The F-Word, and thus are
backronyms. In any event, the word
fuck has been in use far too long for some of these supposed origins to be possible. Some of these urban legends are that the word
fuck came from
Irish law. If a couple were caught committing
adultery, they would be punished "For Unlawful
Carnal Knowledge In the Nude", with "FUCKIN" written on the
stocks above them to denote the crime. A similar variant on this theory involves the recording by church clerks of the crime of Forbidden Use of Carnal Knowledge. Another theory is that of a royal permission. During the
Black Death in the
Middle Ages, towns were trying to control populations and their interactions. Since uncontaminated resources were scarce, many towns required permission to have children. Hence, the legend goes, that couples that were having children were required to first obtain royal permission (usually from a local magistrate or lord) and then place a sign somewhere visible from the road in their home that said "
Fornicating Under Consent of King", which was later shortened to "FUCK". This story is hard to document, but has persisted in oral and literary traditions for many years; however, it has been demonstrated to be an urban legend.
[10]
Its first known use as a verb meaning to have sexual intercourse is in "
Flen flyys", written around
1475.
William Dunbar's 1503 poem "Brash of Wowing" includes the lines: "Yit be his feiris he wald haue fukkit: / Ye brek my hairt, my bony ane" (ll. 13–14).
John Florio's 1598 Italian-English dictionary,
A Worlde of Wordes, included the term, along with several now-archaic, but then vulgar synonyms, in this definition:
- Fottere: To jape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupy.
Of these, "occupy" and "jape" still survive as verbs, though with less profane meanings, while "sard" was a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon verb
seordan (or
seoršan, <
ON serša), to copulate; and "swive" had derived from earlier
swīfan, to revolve i.e. to swivel (compare modern-day "screw").
While
Shakespeare never used the term explicitly; he hinted at it in comic scenes in a few plays.
The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.i) contains the expression
focative case (see
vocative case). In
Henry V (IV.iv), Pistol threatens to
firk (strike) a soldier, a
euphemism for
fuck.