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40-494: Twat is an English-language vulgarism which means the vulva or vagina , and is used figuratively as a derogatory epithet . In British English , and Irish English it is a common insult referring to an obnoxious or stupid person regardless of gender; in American English , it is rarer and usually used to insult a woman. In Britain and Ireland, the usual pronunciation rhymes with "hat", while Americans most often use

80-665: A 1656 translation of Martial's Epigrams and a 1719 bawdy song by Thomas d'Urfey . In 1986 the Supplement to the OED deleted the "obsolete" label and added twentieth-century quotations and the figurative insult as a second sense. Besides Thomas Wright's 1857 dialect dictionary (" twat pudendum f. ") the word also appears in Joseph Wright 's 1892 Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill ("twot pudendum fem. ") but not in

120-415: A computerized corpus. Most recent historical dictionaries and historical dictionary revision projects have been based on a mixture of quotations taken down by hand and texts from corpora. Because of their size and scope, the compilation of historical dictionaries takes significantly longer than the compilation of general dictionaries. This is often exacerbated by the scholarly nature and limited audience for

160-512: A connection with "twitchel", a dialect term for a narrow passage. The twentieth-century British slang verb twat , meaning 'to hit, whack', is probably an unrelated homonym of onomatopoeic origin. Robert Browning famously misused the term in his 1841 poem " Pippa Passes ": Then owls and bats Cowls and twats Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry Many years later, Frederick J. Furnivall wrote to ask Browning what he meant by twat ; Browning replied that as

200-687: A historical dictionary are: However, not all dictionaries which are called 'historical' have all of these features. For example, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary includes only minimal quotations, with most entries having only an approximate date of first use, and the Webster's New International Dictionary (which, though it does not market itself as historical, is founded on historical principles ) features only dates of first use and does not order its senses chronologically. For some languages, like Sanskrit and Greek ,

240-485: A large number of readers to read and excerpt from historical texts into individual pieces of paper, which were then collated into alphabetical order and referred to during the compilation of the relevant entry. The Oxford English Dictionary , for example, established a reading programme at its foundation which continues to this day. The advent of computerized full-text search databases and techniques means that lexicographers can now make use of corpora of documents to gain

280-458: A low or uneducated social class. ... [A vulgarism] is usually a variety of Standard English, but a bad variety. The moral and aesthetic values explicit in such a definition depends on class hierarchy viewed as authoritative. For instance, the "misuse" of aspiration ( H-dropping , such as pronouncing "have" as " 'ave") has been considered a mark of the lower classes in England at least since

320-460: A more balanced view of the history of a particular word or phrase, as well as finding new quotation material to fill gaps in the history of some words; some lexicographers have noted, however, that electronic search is not a complete replacement for manual quotation-gathering, among other things because though it can help finding examples of a word already known to exist, full-text search is less good at identifying which words need to be researched in

360-408: A nun's garb. Erron. Browning ". The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) included many taboo words, albeit often with circumscribed definition and quotations, and twat was duly included in the relevant OED fascicle , published in 1916. The entry labelled it "low" and obsolete and noted Browning's "erroneous" use. There was no direct definition, but rather "See quot. 1727", a reference to the latest of

400-454: A youth he had encountered the word in a volume of broadsides and inferred it to be an item of nun's clothing akin to a wimple . The relevant lines are from Vanity of Vanities , a 1660 attack on Henry Vane the Younger which includes an anti-Catholic joke: They talk't of his having a Cardinalls Hat They'd send him as soon an Old Nuns Twat Melissa Mohr suggests few Victorians knew

440-409: Is a dictionary which deals not only with the latterday meanings of words but also the historical development of their forms and meanings. It may also describe the vocabulary of an earlier stage of a language's development without covering present-day usage at all. A historical dictionary is primarily of interest to scholars of language, but may also be used as a general dictionary. Typical features of

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480-647: Is intended to be a complete historical dictionary of classical Latin. The International Union of Academies undertook in 1924 to compile a series of national dictionaries of Latin in each of its member academies; for instance, the British Academy produced the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources . The Svenska Akademiens ordbok (Dictionary of the Swedish Academy) is a multivolume historical dictionary (also available online) which

520-468: Is notably recorded: "Humble yourselves, my descendants; the father of your race was a 'twat' (tadpole): exalt yourselves, my descendants, for it was the same Divine Thought which created your father that develops itself in exalting you. In 1979, British punk poet John Cooper Clarke included the poem "Twat" on his album Walking Back to Happiness . It has been described, by Nick Duerden of The Independent , as "memorable". In August 2008, Random House ,

560-487: The Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles , and the Australian National Dictionary . Uniquely, from the 1960s to the 2000s, a historical thesaurus was produced for English, which inverts the traditional historical dictionary by showing the development of concepts into words, rather than the development of words to describe different concepts. The Historical Thesaurus of English

600-483: The "Golden Age" canon ( Cicero , Caesar , Vergil , Ovid , among others). This distinction was always an untenable mode of literary criticism , unduly problematizing, for instance, the so-called "Silver Age" novelist Petronius , whose complex and sophisticated prose style in the Satyricon is full of conversational vulgarisms. Vulgarism has been a particular concern of British English traditionalists. In

640-625: The British Board of Film Classification as an example of "moderate language" for the 12 certificate . However, the film Kes originally released in 1969 and given a 'U' certificate by the then British Board of Film Censors, denoting suitable for children, has in later years been re-certified PG in the United Kingdom, meaning: "All ages admitted, but certain scenes may be unsuitable for young children. Should not disturb children aged 8 years or over", despite more than one instance of

680-472: The 1920s, the English lexicographer Henry Wyld defined "vulgarism" as: a peculiarity which intrudes itself into Standard English , and is of such a nature as to be associated with the speech of vulgar or uneducated speakers. The origin of pure vulgarisms is usually that they are importations, not from a regional but from a class dialect —in this case from a dialect which is not that of a province, but of

720-582: The English Language (1755) included quotations from admired writers as well as some words that were obsolete or obsolescent by the mid 18th century. Modern historical principles emerged with the publication of John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808). Like modern historical dictionaries, Jamieson attempted to find the earliest use of each word, and printed quotations in chronological order demonstrating

760-605: The additional comment, " Twat is in no dictionary"; H. W. Fay noted in 1888 in The Academy that the word was in fact in Thomas Wright 's 1857 Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English , and said Browning, Furnivall and Rolfe had all made a "distressing blunder". The 1894 reprint of Select Poems replaced the comment with "Browning would not have used the word if he had known its meaning". In 1911 Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve alluded to "a notorious word which smirches

800-660: The changes which had occurred to that word throughout history. In 1812 the German classicist Franz Passow laid out his plan for a comprehensive dictionary of the Greek language which would 'set out [...] the life story of each single word in a conveniently ordered overviews', which was completed as the Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache in 1824. This idea was transmitted to the English-speaking world through

840-506: The entry's five historical citations , namely the definition in the 1727 Universal Etymological English Dictionary , which was in Neo-Latin : pudendum muliebre ("female private part"). Two of the other OED citations included quotes: Vanity of Vanities and a c. 1704 bawdy verse with a variant spelling: "At last, as groping thro' a dang'rous Street, / Where Stones and Twaits in frosty Winters meet". The two unquoted citations were

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880-539: The first place. The Oxford English Dictionary is the largest and most popular historical dictionary of the English language, with an aim to cover all words which saw some significant use at any time between the early Middle English period and the present day. The earlier history of English is covered in more detail by the Middle English Dictionary (1954–2001) and the Dictionary of Old English (1986–present). Despite efforts made at time of

920-750: The founding of the Middle English Dictionary project to produce a dictionary of Early Modern English , this never came to fruition. Several historical dictionaries exist which cover the dialects and regionalisms particular to certain geographical areas, like the English Dialect Dictionary , the Scottish National Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue , the Dictionary of American Regional English ,

960-489: The historical dictionary (in the sense of a word-list explaining the meanings of words that were obsolete at the time of their compilation) was the first form of dictionary developed; though not being scholarly historical dictionaries in the modern sense, they did give a sense of semantic change over time. Early modern European dictionaries also often included a significant historical element, without being fully historical in form; for instance, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of

1000-417: The instantness of it—too many twits might make a twat". O'Connell said Cameron did not realise the word could cause offense until Gabrielle Bertin advised him to issue an apology. In his 2011 book Filthy English , linguist Peter Silverton asked, "Can you distinguish an utter twat from a complete prick ? I think you can. An utter twat knows not what he or she does. A complete prick does." Workers who go to

1040-675: The late 18th century, as dramatized in My Fair Lady . Because linguistic vulgarism betrayed social class, its avoidance became an aspect of etiquette . In 19th-century England, books such as The Vulgarisms and Improprieties of the English Language (1833) by W. H. Savage, reflected upper-middle-class anxieties about "correctness and good breeding". Vulgarisms in a literary work may be used deliberately to further characterization , by use of " eye dialect " or simply by vocabulary choice. Historical dictionary A historical dictionary or dictionary on historical principles

1080-437: The latter's 1905 English Dialect Dictionary . The 1950s Survey of English Dialects recorded the word at several sites as the term for a cow's vulva. Edward Bulwer-Lytton 's 1870 science fiction novel The Coming Race , uses it to mean tadpole in an apparent satire on Darwin : Among the pithy sayings which, according to tradition, the philosopher bequeathed to posterity in rhythmical form and sententious brevity, this

1120-779: The letters A–F was completed in 2016. There is also the Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch which exclusively covers words loaned into German from other languages, which were largely (though not entirely) omitted from the Grimm dictionary. There is also a Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch covering Early Modern German , the Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch covering Middle High German , and an Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch covering Old High German . The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae underway in Munich

1160-459: The office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and work remotely from home on Mondays and Fridays have been irreverently called "TWaTs". Although the term predated the COVID-19 lockdowns it has become more prevalent since, as more people partially return to offices. For the purposes of film certification, usage of the word is not considered as serious as many other swear words. It is listed by

1200-459: The older pronunciation that rhymes with "squat". This is reflected in the former variant spelling of "twot". The literal sense is first attested in 1656, the epithet in the 1930s. The word's etymology is uncertain. The American Heritage Dictionary suggests a conjectural Old English word "thwāt", meaning "a cut", cognate with the Old Norse "þveit" ("thveit"). Jonathon Green suggests

1240-424: The publisher of the children's book My Sister Jodie by Jacqueline Wilson , decided after receiving three complaints to reprint the word twat as twit in future editions of the novel so as not to offend readers or their parents. In a 2009 breakfast radio interview with Christian O'Connell , British Conservative Party leader and future Prime Minister David Cameron quipped that "the trouble with Twitter ,

Twat - Misplaced Pages Continue

1280-439: The skirt of Pippa Passes". Browning's error posed a dilemma for many pre-1960s lexicographers, who excluded words deemed obscene but aspired to include all words used by major writers like Browning. The 1890 Century Dictionary included the correct definition, labelled "vulgar", and noted Browning's "supposition" of its meaning. In 1934 Webster's Second New International Dictionary 's entry for twat read: "Some part of

1320-502: The various languages of Europe. The main historical dictionary of English, the Oxford English Dictionary , was initiated in 1857 and was completed in 1928. Recently the availability of historical text corpora and other large text databases such as digital newspaper archives have begun to influence historical dictionaries. The Trésor de la langue française was the first historical dictionary to be based mainly on

1360-478: The word, given that "none of the twenty-three or so Victorian editions" of Browning's poem omit it. An 1868 query to Notes and Queries asked what the word in the poem meant; the only published reply was, "Twat is good Somersetshire dialect for a toad=twoad=twat". A footnote in William James Rolfe and Heloise Hersey 's 1886 Select Poems of Robert Browning summarised his reply to Furnivall with

1400-541: The word. The word also appears in writing in an episode of Fawlty Towers (the letters on the sign have been rearranged to say "Flowery Twats"). The episode has a 12 certificate. It also is not on the list of the seven dirty words by George Carlin in his 1972 monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", perhaps because the word is much less common in North America than in Britain, although it

1440-536: The work of Liddell and Scott on their Greek–English Lexicon (1843), based on a translation of Passow's work into English. However, it was not until the beginning of the Deutsches Wörterbuch project of the Brothers Grimm in 1838 that a historical dictionary of a modern language was attempted. Throughout the later nineteenth century numerous historical dictionary projects were started for

1480-470: The works, meaning that the budget is often limited; historical dictionary projects often survive on a grant-to-grant basis, seeking new funding for each new section of the work. Some historical dictionaries, such as Jonathan Lighter's Historical Dictionary of American Slang , have proven to be so expensive for their publishers that they have ended production before the dictionary was completed. Traditionally historical dictionaries were produced by employing

1520-460: Was not, for example, used in a sexual context". Vulgarism The English word "vulgarism" derives ultimately from Latin vulgus, "the common people", often as a pejorative meaning "the [unwashed] masses, undifferentiated herd, a mob". In classical studies , Vulgar Latin as the Latin of everyday life is conventionally contrasted to Classical Latin , the literary language exemplified by

1560-716: Was published in 2009 and is largely based on data from the Oxford English Dictionary ; a similar project is now underway for the Scots language . The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal is the largest dictionary of the Dutch language, founded on historical principles and published from 1864 to 1998, with a supplement following in 2001. The largest historical dictionary of German is the Deutsches Wörterbuch originally compiled by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and completed after their death in 1961. A second edition of

1600-718: Was used as a term of insult in Mel Brooks ' comedy western Blazing Saddles (1974). Unlike many other swear words, it is included in Google's auto-complete function. In 2023 the UK Advertising Standards Authority rejected two complaints about an ad in The Sunday Times for the comedy show " Dawn French is a Huge Twat", commenting, "the use of the word would be understood by readers to be self-deprecating and tongue-in-cheek, and it

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