From Middle English*fukken, probably of Germanic origin: either from Old English*fuccian or Old Norse*fukka, both from Proto-Germanic*fukkōną, from Proto-Indo-European*pewǵ-(“to strike, punch, stab”). Compare windfucker and its debated etymology.
Possibly attested in a 772 AD charter that mentions a place called Fuccerham, which may mean "ham(“home”) of the fucker" or "hamm(“pasture”) of the fucker"; a John le Fucker in a record from 1278 may just be a variant of Fulcher, like Fucher, Foker, etc. The earliest unambiguous use of the word in a clearly sexual context, in any stage of English, appears to be in court documents from Cheshire, England, which mention a man called "Roger Fuckebythenavele" (possibly tongue-in-cheek, or directly suggestive of a depraved sexual act) on December 8, 1310. It was first listed in a dictionary in 1598. Scotsfuk/fuck is attested slightly earlier, probably reinforcing the Northern Germanic/Scandinavian origin theory. From 1500 onward, the word has been in continual use, superseding jape and sard and largely displacing swive.
A range of folk-etymological backronyms, such as "fornication under consent of the king" and "for unlawful carnal knowledge", are all demonstrably false.
fuck (third-person singular simple presentfucks, present participlefucking, simple past and past participlefucked)
(vulgar, colloquial, intransitive) To have sexual intercourse; to copulate.
Synonyms:bang, do it, eff, have sex, hump, screw, shag; see also Thesaurus:copulate
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive) To have sexual intercourse with.
Synonyms:bang, eff, give someone one, hump, ream, screw, shag; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive) To insert one's penis, a dildo, or other object, into a person or a specified orifice or cleft sexually; to penetrate.
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive) To put in an extremely difficult or impossible situation.
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive) To defraud, deface, or otherwise treat badly.
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive, often derogatory)Used to express great displeasure with, or contemptuous dismissal of, someone or something.
Synonyms:bugger, eff, to hell with, screw
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive, usually followed by up) To break, to destroy.
Synonyms:annihilate, obliterate, ruin; see also Thesaurus:destroy
(vulgar, colloquial)Used in a phrasal verb: fuck with(“to play with, to tinker”).
Synonyms:mess, toy
(Can we verify(+) this sense?)(vulgar, transitive) To make a joke at one's expense; to make fun of in an embarrassing manner.
(vulgar, colloquial, transitive, Ireland, UK) To throw, to lob something. (angrily)
Synonym:feck
(Singapore, vulgar, transitive, military slang) To scold.
(vulgar, colloquial, intransitive) To be very good, to rule, go hard.
Conjugation
Translations
Noun
fuck (pluralfucks)
(vulgar, colloquial) An act of sexual intercourse.
Synonyms:see Thesaurus:copulation
(vulgar, colloquial) A sexual partner, especially a casual one.
Synonyms:see Thesaurus:sexual partner
(vulgar, colloquial) A highly contemptible person.
Synonyms:dickhead; see also Thesaurus:jerk
(vulgar, colloquial, chiefly in the negative) The smallest amount of concern or consideration.
Synonyms:shit, damn
(vulgar, colloquial) Semen.
1866, The Romance of Lust, quoted in 2023, 12 Masterpieces of Erotic literature[…] (Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing):
Of course the cunt full of fuck only excited him the more, and he very soon racked off to her great satisfaction, and was dismissed, leaving the rooms vacant for the two at eleven. As there was not five minutes to spare she ran to No. 3, […]
(Can we date this quote?) Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sodom (2013 edition by Simon and Schuster: →ISBN):
She would raise her skirts, display her ass, and the libertine, all smiles, would spray his fuck upon it. A fourth required the same preliminaries, but as soon as the strokes of the cane began to rain down upon his back, he would frig himself[…]
1993, "Farmer's Step-daughter" in alt.sex.stories (Usenet):
She had thought often about what it would be like to let [him] shoot a full load of his fuck into her face. […] She felt the warm fuck filling her mouth, coating her tongue and draining back toward her throat.
Derived terms
bull-fuck(“gravy (likened to semen)”)
Translations
Interjection
fuck
(strongly vulgar)A semi-voluntary vocalization in place of a gasp.
(vulgar, colloquial)Expressing dismay or discontent.
Synonyms:fark, feck, fook, frick, fsck; see also Thesaurus:dammit
Oh, fuck! I forgot to pay that parking ticket and now they want me to appear in court!
(vulgar, colloquial)Expressing surprise or enjoyment.
Synonyms:see Thesaurus:wow
Synonyms
motherfucker
Descendants
Tok Pisin: fak
→⇒ Afrikaans: fok
→ Chinese: 法克(fǎkè)
→ French: fuck, fucker
→ Icelandic: fokk
→ Japanese: ファック
→ Norwegian Bokmål: fucke, føkke
→ Norwegian Nynorsk: fucka, føkka
→ Pitcairn-Norfolk: fak
→ Russian: фак(fak)
→ Serbo-Croatian: fak, фак
→ Welsh: ffwcio
Translations
Adverb
fuck (not comparable)
(vulgar, colloquial)Used as an intensifier for the words "yes" and "no".
Synonyms:hell, god, shit, heck
(UK, vulgar, colloquial)Used after an inverted subject pronoun and auxiliary verb or copula to emphatically negate the verb.
Synonyms:heck, buggery
Particle
fuck
(vulgar, slang, especially African-American Vernacular)Used as a shortened form of various common interrogative phrases.
Derived terms
References
Further reading
Sheidlower, Jesse, The F Word (1999) →ISBN.
Michael Quinion (2004) “Fuck”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, →ISBN.
“fuck”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
“fuck”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
“fuck”, in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
“fuck” (US) / “fuck” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
“fuck”, in Collins English Dictionary.
“fuck”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
“fuck”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
Anagrams
FCUK, fcuk
Danish
Etymology
Borrowed from Englishfuck.
Particle
fuck
(swear word)Expresses dislike of the postpositive complement.
Scots
Alternative forms
fuk
Etymology
From Middle Scotsfuk, fuck(“to copulate”), from Middle English*fukken, *fuken, probably of North Germanic origin: possibly from Old Norse*fukka, from Proto-Germanic*fukkōną.