****, in its literal meaning, is usually considered a vulgar word (swear word) in Modern English. As a noun it refers to fecal matter (excrement) and as a verb it means to defecate or defecate in; in the plural (“the ****s”Log in to see images! it means diarrhoea. As a slang term, it can mean nonsense, foolishness or something of little value; trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk, or a contemptible person. To ****, in slang, is to talk nonsense to, or to attempt to deceive.

Contents [hide]

1 Etymology

2 Usage

2.1 The verb “to ****”

2.2 Other parts of speech

2.3 Usage in acronyms

3 Usage in English media

3.1 Television

3.1.1 United Kingdom

3.1.2 United States

3.2 Japan

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

Etymology

Scholars trace the word back to Old Norse origin (skīta, to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate Germanic tribes at the time of the Roman Empire. It was originally adopted into Old English as the nouns scite (dung, attested only in place names) and scitte (diarrhoea), and the verb scītan (to defecate, attested only in bescītan, to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English schītte (excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and ****en (to defecate). The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *skit-, and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *skheid-. Ancient Greek language had ‘skor’ (root ‘skat-’ from which modern Greek ‘skatá’Log in to see images!. The words ‘skítur’ (noun) and ‘skíta’ (verb), still exist in the Icelandic language today, and in other Scandinavian languages variations of ‘skit’ are also often used.

Usage

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The word **** (or sometimes ****e in Scotland, Ireland, Northern England and Wales) is used by English speakers, but it is usually avoided in formal speech.

In the word’s literal sense, it has a rather small range of common usages. An unspecified or collective occurrence of feces is generally **** or some ****; a single deposit of feces is sometimes a **** or a piece of ****, and to defecate is to ****, or to take a ****. While it is common to speak of **** as existing in a pile, a load, a hunk and other quantities and configurations, such expressions flourish most strongly in the figurative. For practical purposes, when actual defecation and excreta are spoken of in English, it is either through creative euphemism or with a vague and fairly rigid literalism. Substitutes for the word **** in English include sugar and shoot.

**** carries an encompbuming variety of figurative meanings. Of these, perhaps the most common are generic expressions of displeasure (as in, ****!), fear (Oh, ****!), or surprise (Holy ****!).

Interestingly, in slang, prefixing the article the to **** gives it a completely opposite definition, meaning the best, as in “Altered Beast is the ****,” or “Metallica is the ****.”

**** denotes trouble, as in I was in a lot of ****; low quality, as in That disk drive is **** (see “piece of ****” below); unpleasantness, as in Those pants look like ****, or This brown stuff tastes a bit like ****; or falsehood or insincerity, as in Don’t give me that **** or You’re full of ****, or surprised anger, as in Jim is totally going to flip his **** when he sees that we wrecked his marriage. Sometimes using **** to denote anger will be heard in the phrase **** a brick. The word bull**** also denotes false or insincere discourse. (Horse**** is roughly equivalent, while chicken**** means cowardly, bat**** indicates a person is crazy, and going ape**** indicates a person is entering a state of high excitement or unbridled rage.). Are you ****ting me!? is a question sometimes given in response to an incredible bumertion. An answer that rebumerts the veracity of the claim is, I **** you not.

The expression no ****? (a contraction of no bull****?) is used in response to a statement that is extraordinary or hard to believe. Alternatively the maker of the hard-to-believe statement may add “no ****” to reinforce the sincerity or truthfulness of their statement, particularly in response to someone expressing disbelief at their statement. “No ****” is also used sarcastically in response to a statement of the obvious, as in No ****, Sherlock.

**** can also be used to establish superiority over another being. The most common phrase is “Eat ****!” symbolizing the hatred toward the recipient. Some other personal word may be added such as “Eat my ****” implying truly personal connotations. As an aside, the above is actually a contraction of the phrase “Eat **** and die!”. It is often said without commas as a curse; they with the other party to perform exactly those actions in that order. However, the term was originally “Eat, ****, and Die” naming the three most basic things humans have to do, and it is common among soldiers.

**** can also be used as a comparative noun; for instance, This show is funny **** or This test is hard ****, or That was stupid ****. These three usages (with funny, hard, and stupid or another synonym of stupid) are heard most commonly in the United States. Note that **** is both a positive and negative thing in these examples, **** being apparently very funny (a positive thing) and in the second and third examples very hard (as in, difficult- a negative thing to be) or very stupid. Note also that in a phrase like this, the speaker doesn’t include the term as before the comparison; saying that something is as funny as **** would sound like a criticism to anyone reading the term (**** not being a very funny thing to be), although if spoken could be understood along with the spirit it’s said in. Using the as changes these phrases from a simple colloquialism to a literal statement.

**** can comfortably stand in for the terms bad and anything in many instances (Dinner was good, but the movie was ****. You’re all mad at me, but I didn’t do ****!). Many usages are idiomatic. The phrase, I don’t give a **** denotes indifference. I’m **** out of luck usually refers to someone who is at the end of their wits or who has no remaining viable options. That little **** shot me in the bum, suggests a mischievous or contemptuous person. However, in such a nominative construction, crap (as in, That little crap shot me in the bum) is not accepted in vernacular English. Of further note is that little **** is common as a term of opprobrium, while big **** is unfamiliar, and that direct scatological appellations are rarely applied to females, for whom gender-specific terms such as **** or woman's genitals more readily accrue. (However, in Britain and Australia, the term woman's genitals is used to refer to men very much more frequently than to women)

The term piece of **** is generally used to clbumify a product or service as being sufficiently below the writer’s understanding of generally accepted quality standards to be of negligible and perhaps even negative value.The term piece of **** has greater precision than **** or ****ty in that piece of **** identifies the low quality of a specific component or output of a process without applying a derogatory slant to the entire process. For example, if one said “The inner city youth orchestra has been a remarkably successful initiative in that it has kept young people off the streets after school and exposed them to culture and discipline, thereby improving their self esteem and future prospects. The fact that the orchestra’s recent rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of **** should not in any way detract from this.” The substitution of **** or ****ty for pretty much a piece of **** would imply irony and would therefore undermine the strength of the statement.

In Get your **** together! the word **** may refer to some set of personal belongings or tools, or to one’s wits, composure, or attention to the task at hand. He doesn’t have his **** together suggests he is failing rather broadly, with the onus laid to multiple personal shortcomings, rather than bad luck or outside forces. **** can even be a plain, neuter pronoun for basically anything in vulgar speech. For instance, in There is some serious **** going down **** can easily be replaced by stuff with no real loss of meaning. The same applies to Get your **** together! and the like.

To “shoot the ****” is to have a friendly but pointless conversation, as in “Come by my place some time and we’ll shoot the ****.”

“When the **** hits the fan” is usually used to refer to a specific time of confrontation or trouble, which requires decisive action. This is often used in reference to combat situations and the action scenes in movies, but can also be used for everyday instances that one might be apprehensive about. “I don’t want to be here when the **** hits the fan!” indicates that the speaker is dreading this moment (which can be anything from an enemy attack to confronting an angry parent or friend). “He’s the one to turn to when the **** hits the fan.” is an indication that the person being talked about is dependable and will not run from trouble or abandon their allies in tough situations. The concept of this phrase is simple enough, as the actual substance striking the rotating blades of a fan would cause a messy and unpleasant situation (much like being in the presence of a manure spreader). Whether or not this has actually happened, or if the concept is simply feasible enough for most people to imagine the result without needing it to be demonstrated, is unknown. Another example might be the saying “**** rolls down hill” particularly illustrating, the consequences of putting your superiors in a bad position at work. There are a number of anecdotes and jokes about such situations, as the imagery of these situations is considered to be funny. This is generally tied-in with the concept that disgusting and messy substances spilled onto someone else are humorous.

While the most common uses of **** are figurative, the unpleasant substance to which the term literally refers is seldom entirely absent, and thus most uses of **** have some degree of pejoration. But this is far from a universal rule: In some styles of discourse, **** can replace nearly any noun. In the sentence “I bought a bunch of **** at the store today”, **** is merely a casual intensification of stuff. Similarly, Check that **** out! connotes surprise at some sort of stuff or activity that could very well be pleasant. Give me a bite of that **** implies a deliciousness notably absent from the literal substance. It’s common for someone to refer to an unpleasant thing as hard **** (You got a speeding ticket? Man, that’s some hard ****), but the phrase tough **** is used as an unsympathetic way of saying too bad to whomever is having problems (You got arrested? Tough ****, man!) or as a way of expressing to someone that they need to stop complaining about something and just deal with it (Billy: I got arrested because of you! Tommy: Tough ****, dude, you knew you might get arrested when you chose to come with me.) Note that in this case, as in many cases with the term, tough **** is often said as a way of pointing out someone’s fault in his/her own current problem. To drug users, **** almost always refers to a drug being discussed. This was a secret code in the early 60s, and though most people now understand phrases like “I bought some good **** today; I can’t wait to try it”, the phrase is still common.

Perhaps the only constant connotation that **** reliably carries is that its referent holds some degree of emotional intensity for the speaker. Whether offense is taken at hearing the word varies greatly according to listener and situation, and is related to age and social clbum: elderly speakers and those of (or aspiring to) higher socioeconomic strata tend to use it more privately and selectively than younger and more blue-collar speakers. Moreover, in some colloquial speech, calling something or someone the **** is laudatory. For instance, Dave’s new car is the **** suggests that Dave’s new car is very good. This meaning is also essentially a substitution for the term stuff, but is also similar to the colloquial usage of bad to mean dangerous and deserving of respect. Crap is unknown in such locutions.

In polite company, sometimes the backronym Sugar Honey in Tea or Sugar Honey Iced Tea is used.

**** (like ****) is often used to add emphasis more than to add meaning: ****! I was so ****-scared of that ****head that I ****-talked him into dropping out of the karate match. The term to ****-talk connotes bragging or exaggeration (whereas to talk **** primarily means to gossip [about someone in a damaging way] or to talk in a boastful way about things which are erroneous in nature), but in such constructions as the above, the word **** often functions as an interjection. Euphemisms for **** in this usage include shoot, shucks, and in Hiberno-English sugar and its Irish equivalent siúcra (pronounced [ʃuːkrə].

**** itself can be a quasi-euphemism, many intoxicating or narcotic drugs (notably hashish and heroin) being referred to as ****. To be ****faced is to be extremely drunk.

“****” can also be combined with other words to denote the type of feces one has. For instance, “Snake ****” describes feces that are long and slender in shape, thus reminiscent of a snake’s appearance. “Shapeepee” or “**** pee pee” is another word for diarrhea, or can be used to describe feces that are almost entirely of liquid composition.

The verb “to ****”

The preterite and past participle of **** are attested as shat, ****, or ****ted, depending on dialect and, sometimes, the rhythm of the sentence. In the prologue of the Canterbury Tales, ****ten is used as the past participle; however this form is very rare in modern English. In American English **** as a past participle is always correct, while shat is generally acceptable and ****ted is uncommon.

Other parts of speech

Non-native English speakers should take note that **** and **** often serve different uses as expletives, such that (for instance) the present active participle, ****ting, is rarely used emphatically. Ex.: In the sentence, I was so ****-scared of that ****head that I ****-talked him into dropping out of the ****ting karate match, the phrase, ****ting karate match, would be incomprehensible to native speakers except in suggesting a singularly unsanitary form of karate. (In the UK, phrases such as ****ting hell as an emphatic are not unknown.) A correct and clear vulgarism would be the ****ing karate match. Similarly, **** is never used as an infix: While in-****ing-credible is comprehensible English, in-****ting-credible is not. **** you! is likewise a puzzling and ineffective expression of defiance. It is not uncommon, however, to encounter an adjective or noun constructed partially of the word ****, such as ****tastic, ****tacular or ****uation.

Sometimes in family movies, some actors let the word **** slip, but then stretch it into a harmless word. An example occurs in Spy Kids, where Carmen is heard to say “Oh, ****…take mushrooms.” The euphemism was also written into Spy Kids 2, where Carmen says, “You are full of shiitake mushrooms.”

“For ****s and giggles” describes things done on a whim or for no particular reason. Example: I ran around the campus for ****s and giggles.

In parts of Canada, a “****-disturber” is a person who deliberately causes trouble or who is aggravating.

“**** stirrer” is used to refer the same thing in England, Ireland, and in Australia.

A “****load” or a “****-ton” is a very large amount of something, e.g. “I have a ****load of laundry to do today” or “I have hardly any wine, but I have **** tons of beer in the house”.

“****-kickers” are construction boots, large boots in general, or cowboy boots, or wearers of the same (particularly if the person wearing the cowboy boots does not actually herd cattle).

A “****-kicking job” is a low-paid blue-collar work.

“**** in a bag and punch it” is a common colloquial phrase to indicate frustratation with a situation or question, e.g., “John has been arrested again”, “Oh, **** in a bag and punch it.”

In the US military, a dish comprising chipped beef (or hamburger meat) in gravy on toast is often referred to as “**** on a shingle”.

The term “dip****” is used to describe someone who is considered to be stupid, while “dip****tery” can be used to describe general stupidity, e.g., “Can you believe that new policy? That is just plain dip****tery.”

“**** off a shovel” is used in the United Kingdom as a euphemism for speed. It is a visual metaphor projecting the image of moist faeces slipping off the smooth metal surface of the gardening instrument with little or no resistance.

“Hot ****”, in reference to persons, is another way of saying “hotshot” or “hot stuff” but it is usually applied sarcastically to a conceited person.

Some users of English in the Far East use the expression nose **** to describe the fragments of dried nasal mucus which occasionally exit (deliberately or accidentally) from the nostrils. Similarly, expressions eye **** and less commonly ear **** describe discharge of the eye, dried or still moist, and ear wax, respectively. These are all direct calques of the Chinese expressions for these bodily outputs.

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