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Is this true? 14 comments
guest
· 5 years ago
Longford.
1925 S. Lewis Martin Arrowsmith vi. 65 You ought to hear some of the docs that are the sweetest old pussies with their patients—the way they bawl out the nurses.
1934 M. H. Weseen Dict. Amer. Slang 193 Pussy, an effeminate boy.
And of course also sense A.3.a (noted as coarse slang) "The female genitals; the vulva or vagina", with citations from 1699 forwards, and various extensions and expressions thereon based.
The OED separates out the adjectival uses as subentry B., glossed "Exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat; cat-like. Also (in later use chiefly): weak, cowardly".
The etymology of pussy is fairly straightforward: the base puss is
Apparently a word inherited from Germanic. Apparently cognate with Dutch poes cat, also call-name for a cat (1683; also puis 1561), Middle Low German pūse , German regional (Low German) Puus cat (also Puus-katte , Puus-man ), Danish pus , call-name for a cat, Swedish regional pus (also katte-pus ); further etymology
1925 S. Lewis Martin Arrowsmith vi. 65 You ought to hear some of the docs that are the sweetest old pussies with their patients—the way they bawl out the nurses.
1934 M. H. Weseen Dict. Amer. Slang 193 Pussy, an effeminate boy.
And of course also sense A.3.a (noted as coarse slang) "The female genitals; the vulva or vagina", with citations from 1699 forwards, and various extensions and expressions thereon based.
The OED separates out the adjectival uses as subentry B., glossed "Exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat; cat-like. Also (in later use chiefly): weak, cowardly".
The etymology of pussy is fairly straightforward: the base puss is
Apparently a word inherited from Germanic. Apparently cognate with Dutch poes cat, also call-name for a cat (1683; also puis 1561), Middle Low German pūse , German regional (Low German) Puus cat (also Puus-katte , Puus-man ), Danish pus , call-name for a cat, Swedish regional pus (also katte-pus ); further etymology
Is this true? 14 comments
guest
· 5 years ago
The pusillanimous pussy theory is "preposterous balderdash, or if you prefer, utter bullshit".
The details: What helps to clear this up is the Oxford English Dictionary.
The OED glosses pussy 2 as (sense A.1.a.) "A girl or woman exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat, esp. sweetness or amiability", with citations back to the 15th century:
a1560 in T. Wright Songs & Ballads Reign Philip & Mary (1860) lxxiv. 209 Adew, my pretty pussy, Yow pynche me very nere.
1583 P. Stubbes Anat. Abuses sig. Hv, You shall haue euery sawcy boy..to catch vp a woman & marie her… So he haue his pretie pussie to huggle withall, it forceth not.
Then there's an extended sense, glossed as "slang (chiefly N. Amer.). A sweet or effeminate male; (in later use chiefly) a weakling, a coward, a sissy. Also: a male homosexual", with the earliest citations from the first half of the 20th century:
1904 ‘M. Corelli’ God's Good Man xxi, I shall invite Roxmouth and his tame pussy, Mr. Marius
2
The details: What helps to clear this up is the Oxford English Dictionary.
The OED glosses pussy 2 as (sense A.1.a.) "A girl or woman exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat, esp. sweetness or amiability", with citations back to the 15th century:
a1560 in T. Wright Songs & Ballads Reign Philip & Mary (1860) lxxiv. 209 Adew, my pretty pussy, Yow pynche me very nere.
1583 P. Stubbes Anat. Abuses sig. Hv, You shall haue euery sawcy boy..to catch vp a woman & marie her… So he haue his pretie pussie to huggle withall, it forceth not.
Then there's an extended sense, glossed as "slang (chiefly N. Amer.). A sweet or effeminate male; (in later use chiefly) a weakling, a coward, a sissy. Also: a male homosexual", with the earliest citations from the first half of the 20th century:
1904 ‘M. Corelli’ God's Good Man xxi, I shall invite Roxmouth and his tame pussy, Mr. Marius
And the diminutive/hypocoristic ending -y-ie has been around since the early 16th century:
Used to form pet names and familiar diminutives. The forms -y and -ie are now almost equally common in proper names as such, but in a few instances one or other spelling is preferred, as Annie, Betty, Sally (rather than Anny, Bettie, Sallie); in the transferred applications of these, as jemmy, tommy, dicky, and the like, -y prevails; in general hypocoristic forms -ie is the favourite spelling after Scottish usage, as dearie, mousie.
There may be some connection to Dutch -je, but this is apparently at best conjectural.
Nowhere in all of this is pusillanimous mentioned. That word comes from French pusillanime / post-classical Latin