The much used rude word fuck – or the f-word as it is often referred to as – has a long history of use in English, dating back through the centuries.
For some time it was believed that the first recorded use of the word was in 1528, when a frustrated monk (for purposes unknown) allegedly wrote “O d fucking Abbot” in the margins of a document. However, a British historian has recently shed new light on the enthralling history of the f-word, dating its first use back to 1310.
Dr. Paul Booth, former lecturer and now honorary senior research fellow at Keele University (UK), has recently found a use of the infamous f-word dating all the way back to 1310, when an English court of law used the word in reference to a defendant; Roger Fuckebythenavele. Despite this seeming like a joke, it is believed that this man was either given Fuckebythenavele as a nickname because of his stupidity, or because of his lack of knowledge about intercourse, but either way this gentleman may be the true origin for the now oh-so famous rude word.
The origins of the word seems then to be of sexual nature, and seemingly it was not until much later that the word came to be used for swearing; The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests 1893 to be when the word was first used for non-sexual reference.
On a related note; A developed and another popular use of the f-word – flying fuck – apparently has its roots in reference to making love while riding a horse, and was allegedly first used in a 19th century ballad entitled New Feats of Horsemanship. GOOD TO KNOW!
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Sources:
- Harper, D., 2015. Fuck. Online Etymology Dictionary [online].
- The Independent, 2015. Historian understood to have found first use of word f*** in 1310 English court case. The Independent [online], 13 September 2015.
Photo credits:
Language Observer 
