The F-Word (38 page)

fuck-in
noun

(esp. among hippies) a love-in that includes public copulation; an orgy. Usually
jocular
.

1965
E. Sanders
Fuck You
(June): A Fuck-in for Peace.
1967–68
N. von Hoffman
We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against
211: That was when we had a fuck-in at the White House.
1968
in M. J. Estren
History of Underground Comics
(1974) 17: Grand Opening of the Great International Fuck-In and Orgy-Riot.
1971
U. K. Le Guin
Lathe of Heaven
69: And there were the riots, and the fuck-ins, and the Doomsday Band and the Vigilantes.
1971
Playboy
(Apr.) 184: If you want to get rid of dormitory rules, you have a fuck-in.
1975
M. Amis
Dead Babies
(1991) 122: And I don’t just mean the sex conventions and the fuck-ins.
1980
F. Rush
Best Kept Secret
191: But when these young radicals approached thirty, they discovered that their love-ins and fuck-ins neither freed the poor, the parks nor liberated Washington.
2002
R. Coover
Adventures of Lucky Pierre
268: His massive fuck-ins have closed down movie houses, clogged traffic, collapsed bridges, paralyzed City Hall!

fucking
noun

1
. sexual intercourse.

1568
A. Scott
Poems
(1896) iv. 55: Thir foure, the suth to sane, Enforsis thame to fucking.
1571
in J. Cranstoun
Satirical Poems Reformation
(1891) I. 202: For quha wald not lauche…To se forett þe holy frere his fukking so deploire?
1708
School of Love
in
Indictment
(Public Records Office: KB 28/24) m. 9: My lovely Phil. is…as well vers’d in the various manners of ffucking and ffrigging, as the Captain of the virtuosa’s.
1766
in N. E. Eliason
Tarheel Talk
(1956) 185: As to the flesh tho’, I cannot say I have occasion for any violent longings, as I have reduced F—n almost to a regular matrimonial system.
1849
A. Doten
Journals
I 40: There are plenty of girls in Talcahuano and the principal business carried on is— F—ing.
1854
in
American Speech
IX (1934) 271: [According to the actor David Garrick,] when it was asked what was the greatest pleasure, Johnson answered *******.
1865
“Philocomus”
Love Feast
ii. 14: The fucking, tickling and the sight/Drove me half frantic with delight.
1867
in A. Doten
Journals
II 949 [in cipher]: Me and my love had thus far one hundred good square fucks—the best fucking on the face of the earth.
1888
Stag Party
219: Sodom…was the worst place for wild fucking of all descriptions…(barring Chicago).
1932
H. Miller
Letter
(July 30) in G. Stuhlmann
Literate Passion
(1989) 82: When you return I am going to give you one literary fuck-fest—that means fucking and talking and talking and fucking—and a bottle of Anjou in between—or a Vermouth Cassis.
1964
S. Bellow
Herzog
214: But if the fucking is at home and the child exposed to it, the judicial attitude is different.
1988
F. Busch
Ralph Duck
in M. Atwood
Best American Short Stories 1989
(1989) 78: I wrote him a paper about the mechanics of corpse fucking.
1993
S. Brown
Where There’s Smoke
373: Some of the best fucking I ever did.
1995
H. Korine
Kids
150: Fucking is what I love. Take that away from me, and I really got nothin.
2002
M. Faber
Crimson Petal and the White
818: Fuck the girl and have done with it! Fuck all the females in the world while the fucking is good!

2
. fooling around; wasting time. Used with (chiefly
U.S.
)
around
or (chiefly
Brit.
)
about
.

1931
H. Miller in
Letters to Emil
(1989) 76: “My dear,” she says. “I just couldn’t stay away from you. I’m sick of all this fucking around.”
1964
K. Amis
Letter
in Z. Leader
Letters of Kingsley Amis
(2000) 658: I ought to have told you earlier, but general fucking about, including Xmas, and disinclination…to do anything whatever.
1984
J. Kelman
Busconductor Hines
(1992) iv. 167: What’s the point of fucking about. You leave half of the second pint and get off your mark.
2000
Village Voice
(Dec. 5) 138: His greatest ire is reserved for a snooty critic who refuses to concede that all the hyperbolic, blood-spattered fucking about might be worth a second look.

3
. a defeat, a drubbing; an instance of exploitation or victimization.

1945
in
Verbatim
(1989) (Autumn) 5/2
Fxxxing
…, a crushing (humiliating) defeat, a drubbing, a fleecing, a loss… We took a right regular fxxxing at Tobruk.
1958
in R. Schwitzgebel
Streetcorner Research
50: If a kid went and fucked up, you just don’t go out and give him a fuckin’.
1967
H. S. Thompson
Letter
(Mar. 21) in
Proud Highway
(1997) 605: Every time he says, “Don’t look back,” I focus more intensely to the rear, the past, and the indefensible fucking I got on the Hell’s Angels contract.
1969
Black Panther
(May 4) in P. S. Foner
Black Panthers Speak
(1970) 251: It’s made that way by the royal fucking that the working class gets in this country.
1997
Black Renaissance
(Oct. 31): A person like Miles [Davis] never realized that he was giving almost everyone else a royal fucking (but if he had realized it he still wouldn’t have cared).

fucking
adjective

1
. that engages or is engaged in sexual intercourse. Also: used during sexual activity or for sexual gratification; relating to or describing sexual activity.

1528
MS Brasenose College, Oxford VII
(marginal note) in
Notes & Queries
(1993) (Mar.) 29/2: O d [
perhaps
= damned] fuckin Abbot.
1571
in J. Cranstoun
Satirical Poems Reformation
(1891) I. 202: Than lat ws sing, O fukand flok! yor deid is not lyk yor say.
1680
Lord Rochester
Poems
30: Through all the Town, the common Fucking Post,/On whom each Whore, relieves her tingling Cunt.
1880
Pearl
(June) 427: The last improvement in dildoes—the new patent Fucking Machine.
1882
Boudoir
160: Hurray, hurray, she’s a maid no more,/But a f—g wife for evermore!
ca
1890
My Secret Life
VIII. ix. 307 She was…a magnificent bit of fucking flesh, but nothing more.
1917–20
T. Dreiser
Newspaper Days
233 [refers to 1893]: A large, Irish policeman…[said] “She’s a Goddamned drunken, fucking old whore, that’s what she is.”
Ibid.
276: I’m living…with a Goddamned fucking whore.
1939
D. Thomas
Letter
(Sept. 11) in P. Ferris
Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas
(1987) 408: He’s always got the same cracks to grind, but, after all, good fucking books are few & far, & if you look at
Tropic of Cancer
as the best modern fucking book…then I know you must enjoy & admire it enormously.
ca
1942
? H. Miller
Opus Pistorum
(typescript, Library of Congress) II. iii. 55: I am going to America and I am going to buy or make or have made a good mechanical cunt, a fucking machine, which runs by electricity.
1990
R. M. Polhemus
Erotic Faith
xi. 306: Just the sort of subjective, pompous, silly eloquence and wisdom that might be popping in the mind of some happily fucking human being.
2001
K. Rexroth in D. Meltzer
San Francisco Beat
237: Did you ever take a chick into a motel in Southern California? It has a fucking machine in it. The bed fucks. You don’t have to do any work.

2
. contemptible or despicable; goddamned; (often used with reduced force for emphasis). [Perhaps originally taken from opprobrious literal phrases such as
fucking whore
or
fucking bitch
(cf. sense 1, above).
Fucking
is probably the word intended in the 1857 quotation: the number of asterisks is correct for the length of the word, and any word less vulgar would only be partly omitted (compare representation of
bitch
in the same quotation); compare the identical use of asterisks in clearer contexts from the same era in the 1848 and 1854 quotations at
FUCK
,
verb
, definition 1a.]

1857
Suppressed Book about Slavery
211: The Dr… applied the lash. The Woman writhed under each stroke, and cried, “O Lord!”…The Doctor…
thus addressed her (the congregation must pardon me for repeating his words). “Hush, you ******* b—h, will you take the name of the Lord in Vain on the Sabbath day?”
1888
Stag Party
[unpaged]: Now this gives us another fucking scene, leastways it is not exactly a fucking scene, though it came near being one. It shows you Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.
a
1890–93
J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley
Slang & Its Analogues
III 80:
Fucking…Adj.
(common).—A qualification of extreme contumely.
1915
E. Pound in Materer
Pound/Lewis
18: God damn the fucking lot of ’em.
1915
in P. Adam-Smith
ANZACS
168: You fucking xt I’ve only just got the f…g thing off the other f…g table you b..t..d.
1918
in [H. V. O’Brien]
Wine, Women & War
205 [diary entry for Sept. 26]: Hi, Tommy, ’ere’s one o’ yer fuckin’ English hofficers wants t’ be saluted.
1914–21
J. Joyce
Ulysses
595: I’ll wring the neck of any bugger says a word against my fucking king.
Ibid.
600: I’ll do him in, so help me fucking Christ!
1921
Notes & Queries
(Nov. 19) 415 [refers to WWI]: [
Fucking
] was used adjectivally to qualify almost every noun in the soldier’s vocabulary.
1923
R. McAlmon
Companion Volume
51: What in fucking hell do youse think this is, a sunday school picnic, or a tea party?
1927
Immortalia
124: He’s a fucking son-of-a-bitch.
1928
in A. W. Read
Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy
(1935) 54: You god Dam fucken fool.
1929–30
J. Dos Passos
42nd Parallel
77: Jack, it was a fucking shame.
1934
H. Roth
Call It Sleep
231 [refers to
ca
1910]: Didja ever see dat new tawch boinin’ troo a goider er a flange er any fuck’n hunka iron?
1935
T. Wolfe
Of Time & the River
598: I’ll kick duh f—kin’ s—t outa duh f—kin’ lot of yuh, yuh f—kin’ bastards, you.
1937
E. Hemingway
To Have & Have Not
225: A man alone ain’t got no bloody fucking chance.
1938
in P. Oliver
Blues Tradition
170: I…don’t deny my fuckin’ name.
1939
T. Sturgeon
Ether Breather
in D. Knight
First Flight
(1963) 88: He took his lips from hers, buried his face in her hair and said clearly: “I hate your — guts.” And that “—” was the most perfectly enunciated present participle of a four-letter verb I have ever heard.
1942
N. Algren
Never Come Morning
39: Dey ain’t a book in da f— place.
1943
F. Wakeman
Shore Leave
184: “The f—ing island,” Crewson corrected.
1948
J. G. Cozzens
Guard of Honor
561: Said why the f— holy hell didn’t they get a boat from Lake Armstrong.
1951
D. R. Morris
China Station
129: You’re a fucking liar.
1953–55
MacK. Kantor
Andersonville
224: What?—with this fucking pistol of yours?
1955
J. O’Hara
Ten North Frederick
365: I think you’re a fucking hypocrite.
1960
in A. Sexton
Letters
97: My (fucking) book comes out March 1st in case you’ve forgotten.
1964
I. Faust
Steagle
105: I can’t ever get a fuckin break.
1972
Captain John W. Young on lunar surface in
Newsweek
(May 1) 24: “I haven’t eaten this much citrus fruit in twenty years,” he snorted. “And I’ll tell you one thing: in another twelve f— days, I ain’t ever eating any more.”
1987
T. Wolfe
Bonfire of Vanities
59: I said please pick up the fucking phone! I mean holy shit!
1992
Newsweek
(Nov. 23) 32: We’re going to blow up your f— building.
1995
New Yorker
(July 17) 50: I’m not your fucking scribe! I write what’s meaningful to me!
1999
New Yorker
(Aug. 23) 124/1: Keep you fokkin’ head down!
2004
J. Meno
Hairstyles of Damned
113: But Bobby is a fucking asshole.
2007
M. Wall
W.A.R.: Unauthorized Biography of W. Axl Rose
267: You can’t even hold a fucking candle to that fucking guy.