faggot

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: a bundle of sticks or branches bound together for fuel

   The workers stacked each faggot of brushwood beside the kiln.

2. 2
   noun

   British regional: a seasoned ball of chopped meat, traditionally made with pork offal

   The pub served a faggot with peas and thick gravy.

3. 3
   noun

   extremely offensive: an anti-gay slur used abusively of a person

   The word faggot is an extremely offensive slur and should not be used for a person.

Simplified etymology

Faggot entered Middle English meaning “a bundle of sticks for fuel,” through Old French from Italian fagotto, based on Greek phakelos, “bundle.” By the late 15th century it could mean any bundle or miscellaneous collection, which later gave its name to the traditional dish made from chopped pork and offal. It became an abusive term for a woman in the late 16th century and, in early-20th-century US English, an offensive term for a gay man; the shortened form fag dates from the 1920s.

From Middle English fagot and Old French fagot, meaning a bundle of sticks; the ultimate origin is uncertain. The regional food sense probably refers to the shape of a bound bundle. The anti-gay slur is first recorded in early twentieth-century American English and likely grew from an earlier contemptuous term for a person; the burning-at-the-stake story is unsupported.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary