Look up Fart in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Fart is an English language vulgarism most commonly used in reference to flatulence. The word "fart" is generally considered unsuitable in a formal environment by modern English speakers, and it may be considered vulgar or offensive in some situations. Fart can be used as a noun or a verb.^[1] The immediate roots are in the Middle English words "ferten", "feortan" or "farten"; which is akin to the Old High German word "ferzan" meaning 'to break wind'. Other roots lie in old Norse, Greek and Sanskrit. The word "fart" has been incorporated into the colloquial and technical speech of a number of occupations, including computing. Flatulence is the presence of a mixture of gases in the digestive tract of mammals. ... This article is about the word fart itself. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... “Vulgar” redirects here. ... Flatulence is the presence of a mixture of gases in the digestive tract of mammals. ... The term vulgar originally meant of the common people, from the Latin vulgus. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... Look up Colloquialism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the glossary of hacker slang, see Jargon File. ...

Fart is sometimes used as a nonspecific derogatory epithet, often to refer to 'an irritating or foolish person', and potentially an elderly person, described as an 'old fart'. This may be taken as an insult when used in the second or third person, but can potentially be a term of endearment, or an example of self deprecatory humour when used in the first person.^[2] The phrase 'boring old fart' was popularised in the UK in the late 1970's by the New Musical Express while chronicling the rise of punk, it was used to describe hippies and establishment figures in the music industry, forces of inertia against the new music. A word or phrase is pejorative or derogatory (sometimes misspelled perjorative) if it expresses contempt or disapproval; dyslogistic (noun: dyslogism) is used synonymously (antonyms: meliorative, eulogistic, noun eulogism). ... Look up epithet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The New Musical Express (better known as the NME) is a weekly magazine about popular music published in the UK. It is unlike many other popular music magazines due to its intended focus on guitar-based music and indie rock bands, instead of mainstream pop acts. ...

Usage history

Indo-European origins

The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary. Its Indo-European pedigree is confirmed by the many cognate words in other Indo-European languages: It is cognate with Greek πέρδομαι (perdomai), Latin pēdĕre, Sanskrit pardate, Avestan pərəδaiti, and Russian пердеть (perdet'), all of which mean the same thing. Like most Indo-European roots in the Germanic languages, it was altered by Grimm's law, so that Indo-European /p/ > /f/, and /d/ > /t/, as the German cognate furzen also manifests.^[3][4][5] The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. ... Look up cognate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... Latin profanity is the profane, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin, and its uses. ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. ... The Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... Grimms law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic (PGmc, the common ancestor of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family) in the 1st millennium BC. It establishes...

The word fart in Middle English occurs in Chaucer's "Miller's Tale" (one of the Canterbury Tales). In the tale (which is told by a bawdy miller as a group of pilgrims travel to Canterbury), Absolon has already been tricked into kissing Alison's buttocks when he is expecting to kiss her face. Her boyfriend Nicholas hangs his buttocks out of a window, hoping to trick Absolon into kissing his buttocks in turn and then passes gas in the face of his rival. Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... Chaucer: Illustration from Cassells History of England, circa 1902 Chanticleer the rooster from an outdoor production of Chanticleer and the Fox at Ashby_de_la_Zouch castle Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. ... The Millers Prologue and Tale is the second of Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales, told by a drunken miller to quite The Knights Tale. ... Canterbury Tales Woodcut 1484 The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). ... Bottom commonly refers to the human buttocks but also has other uses. ...

Vulgarity and offensiveness

In certain circles the word is considered merely a common profanity with an often humorous connotation. For example, a person may be referred to as a 'fart', or an 'old fart', not necessarily depending on the person's age. This may convey the sense that a person is overly boring or fussy and be intended as an insult, mainly when used in the second or third person. For example '"he's a boring old fart!" However the word may be used as a colloquial term of endearment or a in an attempt at humorous self-deprecation, (e.g., in such phrases as "I know I'm just an old fart" or "you do like to fart about!"). 'Fart' is often only used as a term of endearment when the subject is personally well known to the user. In both cases though, it tends to refer to personal habits or traits that the user considers to be a negative feature of the subject, even when it is a self-reference. For example, when concerned that a person is being overly methodical they might say 'I know I'm being an old fart', potentially to forestall negative thoughts and opinions in other. When used in an attempt to be offensive, the word is still considered vulgar, but it remains a mild example of such an insult. In cartoons, profanity is often depicted by substituting symbols for words, as a form of non-specific censorship. ... Look up Humour in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Connotation is a subjective cultural and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotative meaning of any specific word or phrase in a language, i. ... Look up comfort in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Modern usage

By the early twentieth century, the word "fart" had come to be considered rather vulgar in most English-speaking cultures. For a long time, the word was forbidden from the public airwaves in the United States by the FCC.^{[citation needed]} While not one of George Carlin's original seven dirty words, he noted in a later routine that the word fart , ought to be added to "the list" of words that were not acceptable (for broadcast) in any context (which have non-offensive meanings).^[6] The abbreviation FCC can refer to: Face-centered cubic (usually fcc), a crystallographic structure Federal Communications Commission, a US government organization Farm Credit Corporation/Farm Credit Canada, a Canadian government organization Families with Children from China, an adoption support organization Florida Christian College, a college in central Florida Fresno City... George Denis Patrick Carlin[15] (born May 12, 1937) is a Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, and author. ... The seven dirty words are seven English words comedian George Carlin listed in his monologue Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, released in 1972 on his album Class Clown. ...

Changing attitudes

With the rise of cable television and changing social mores in general, the word fart is (in 2007) frequently heard in the broadcast media. It is also now found in such places as children's literature, such as the Walter the Farting Dog series of children's books, Robert Munsch's Good Families Don't and The Gas We Pass by Shinta Cho. While still considered impolite in some social contexts, much of the stigma surrounding the word has disappeared. Cable TV redirects here. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Walter the Farting Dog is a series of childrens books by William Kotzwinkle, Glenn Murray, and illustrated by Audrey Colman. ... Robert Norman Munsch, C.M. (born June 11, 1945) is a U.S.-born Canadian childrens author. ... The Gas We Pass book cover The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts is a childrens book written by Shinta Cho, published by Kane/Miller Book Publishers. ...

In other usage

As a verb phrase

Following on from 'fart' being used to refer to an irritating or foolish person, the verb phrase 'fart around', meaning to spend time foolishly or aimlessly is also utilised. Again this can be in a humorous attempt at a term of endearment, or as an insult.^[1] The implication is that the person is being a 'fart', and otherwise is wasting time, or achieving little.

As a lapse in concentration

The term 'brain fart', often used as a synonym for a 'senior moment', or a momentary lapse in concentration or occurrence of forgetfulness, such as an Absence seizure. It is a more modern usage, similar in derivation to the term fart to denote uselessness or a period of low achievement. In some cases, particularly the corporate world, it may be used to describe a situation where a person has spoken out of turn to a superior figure. This usage implies a momentary lack of forethought and a break in good sense, which may be colloquially explained away as the result of a 'brain fart'.^[7] Absence seizures are one of several kinds of seizures. ...

Other usages

Fart has been used to name cocktails, an example being a 'Duck fart', playing on the humorous reference to flatulence--an example of toilet humour.^[8] It has also been used in the term 'fart sack', military slang for a bed or sleeping bag.^[9] In scuba diving, the word cocktail also means a hazard with diving with some rebreathers: it means a caustic solution resulting from water reaching and dissolving the absorbent. ... Toilet humour or scatological humour is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, urination, regurgitation and other bodily functions. ... A sleeping bag is a protective bag for a person to sleep in, essentially a blanket that can be closed with a zipper or similar means, and functions as a bed in situations where it is impractical to carry around a full bed. ...

References

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD) is an American dictionary of the English language published by Boston publisher Houghton-Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969. ...

External links

• CTV article on Dr. Michael Levitt, the world's leading fart expert