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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Fuck (disambiguation).

A protester's sign using the word fuck on Tax

March Day, April 15, 2017 in Washington, D.C. U.S.
Fuck is an English-language profanity which often refers to the act of sexual
intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain.
While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to around
1475.[1] In modern usage, the term fuck and its derivatives (such
as fucker and fucking) are used as a noun, a verb, an adjective,
an interjection or an adverb. There are many common phrases that employ the
word as well as compounds that incorporate it, such as motherfucker and fuck
off.

Offensiveness
It is unclear whether the word has always been considered a pejorative or, if
not, when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry,
hostile, or belligerent manner) unpleasant circumstances or people in an
intentionally offensive way, su

ch as in the term motherfucker, one of its more common usages in some parts
of the English-speaking world. Some English-speaking countries censor it on
television and radio. Andrea Millwood Hargrave's 2000 study of the attitudes of
the British public found that fuck was considered the third-most-severe

profanity, and its derivative motherfucker second. Cunt was considered the
most severe.[2]

Nevertheless, the word has increasingly become less of a pejorative and more
publicly acceptable, an example of the "dysphemism treadmill" or semantic
drift known as melioration, wherein former pejoratives become inoffensive and
commonplace.[3][4] Because of its increasing usage in the public forum, in 2005
the word was included for the first time as one of three vulgarities in The
Canadian Press's Canadian Press Caps and

Spelling guide. Journalists were advised to refrain from censoring the word but
use it sparingly and only when its inclusion was essential to the story.
[5]
According to linguist Pamela Hobbs, "notwithstanding its increasing public
use, enduring cultural models that inform our beliefs about the nature of
sexuality and sexual acts preserve its status as a vile utterance that continues
to inspire moral outrage." Hobbs considers users rather than usage of the word
and sub-divides users into "non-users", for whom "the word belongs to a set of
taboo words, the very utterance of which constitutes an affront, and any use of
the word, regardless of its form (verb, adjective, adverb, etc.) or meaning (literal
or metaphorical) evokes the core sexual meanings and associated sexual
imagery that motivate the taboo."; and "users", for whom "metaphorical uses of
the word fuck no more evoke images of sexual intercourse than a ten-year-old's
'My mom'll kill me if she finds out' evokes images of murder," so that the "criteria
of taboo are missing."[6]