fuck
n.n. a vulgar swear word used to show anger or frustration. People use it when they're very upset or surprised.
n. a vulgar exclamation expressing intense anger, frustration, or disbelief. Commonly used in informal speech and often considered offensive in formal contexts.
He shouted fuck when he saw the broken glass.
The player kicked the ball and yelled fuck when he missed the goal.
The character's outburst of fuck highlighted his desperation, though the author chose to omit it in the final edit for sensitivity.
The word traces from Proto-Indo-European pewǵ- (“to strike, punch, stab”), through Proto-Germanic fukkōną and Old English fuccian, into Middle English fukken by the 13th century. A 772 CE charter notes a place called Fuccerham, possibly “home of the fucker” or “pasture of the fucker”; a John le Fucker appears in 1278, likely a variant of Fulcher, Fucher, or Foker. By 1310, Cheshire court documents refer to Roger Fuckebythenavele, a name that may have been a deliberate provocation or a direct allusion to a depraved act. The word entered dictionaries in 1598, having displaced earlier terms like jape and swive by 1500, its usage uninterrupted since.
The earliest unambiguous sexual use is in the 1310 case, though the term’s northern Germanic/Scandinavian roots are reinforced by earlier Scots attestations of fuk or fuck. Folk-etymologies proposing backronyms such as “fornication under consent of the king” are demonstrably false. The verb’s seventh sense derives from feck, a related term, but the connection remains obscure.
A place name, a legal record, a dictionary entry, and a lexical takeover: fuck endured without scholarly consensus on its earliest meanings, its history marked by ambiguity and utility. The surviving traces include not only the word itself but also the futile efforts of later generations to repackage its origins as something more palatable.
Uncountable; typically used in informal contexts and considered offensive in formal writing.
I went to the party with my fuckI went to the party with my friendThe word fuck is vulgar and inappropriate in most contexts; use more polite terms instead.