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86-498: They were descendants of the Counts of Langres . The family's head was Renaud III de Choiseul , comte de Langres and sire de Choiseul, who in 1182 married Alix de Dreux , daughter of Louis VI of France . It has formed into the Langres , Clémont , Aigremont , Beaugré , Allecourt , Frontières , Praslin , Plessis branches, among others. It also took the name Choiseul- Gouffier from

172-488: A Pakistani immigrant as "eating hot buttered toast with cunty fingers", suggestive of hypocrisy and a hidden sordidness or immorality behind the country's quaint façade. This term is attributed to British novelist Henry Green . In the United States, "cunty" is sometimes used in cross-dressing drag ball culture for a drag queen that "projects feminine beauty" and was the title of a hit song by Aviance . A visitor to

258-485: A Glossary on Heraldica.org by Alexander Krischnig. The male form is followed by the female, and when available, by the territorial circumscription. Apart from all these, a few unusual titles have been of comital rank, not necessarily permanently. Since Louis VII (1137–80), the highest precedence amongst the vassals ( Prince-bishops and secular nobility) of the French crown was enjoyed by those whose benefice or temporal fief

344-645: A New York drag show tells of the emcee praising a queen with "cunty, cunty, cunty" as she walks past. Rapper Azealia Banks is known for her frequent usage of the word, and her fans are known as the Kunt Brigade. She's said in one interview: "To be cunty is to be feminine and to be, like, aware of yourself. Nobody's fucking with that inner strength and delicateness. The cunts, the gay men, adore that. My friends would say, "Oh you need to cunt it up! You're being too banjee ." Frequency of use varies widely. According to research in 2013 and 2014 by Aston University and

430-503: A broader derogatory term, it is comparable to prick and means "a fool, a dolt, an unpleasant person – of either sex". This sense is common in New Zealand, British, and Australian English, where it is usually applied to men or as referring specifically to "a despicable, contemptible or foolish" man . During the 1971 Oz trial for obscenity, prosecuting counsel asked writer George Melly , "Would you call your 10-year-old daughter

516-501: A certain status, but also that the count had specific responsibilities or offices. The etymologically related English term " county " denoted the territories associated with some countships, but not all. The title of count is typically not used in England or English-speaking countries, and the term earl is used instead. A female holder of the title is still referred to as a countess , however. The word count came into English from

602-484: A cunt?" Melly replied, "No, because I don't think she is." In the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , the central character McMurphy , when pressed to explain exactly why he does not like the tyrannical Nurse Ratched, says, "Well, I don't want to break up the meeting or nothing, but she's something of a cunt, ain't she, Doc?" In informal British, Irish, New Zealand, and Australian English, and occasionally but to

688-493: A good cunt"). The term has various derivative senses, including adjective and verb uses. The earliest known use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary , was as part of a placename : an Oxford street called Gropecunt Lane , c.  1230 , now by the name of Grove Passage or Magpie Lane. Use of the word as a term of abuse is relatively recent, dating from the late nineteenth century. The word

774-506: A lesser extent in Canadian English, it can be used with no negative connotations to refer to a (usually male) person. In this sense, it may be modified by a positive qualifier (funny, clever, etc.). For example, "This is my mate Brian. He's a good cunt." It can also be used to refer to something very difficult or unpleasant (as in "a cunt of a job"). In the Survey of English Dialects

860-630: A live broadcast, the word has been aired outside editorial control: The first scripted uses of the word on British television occurred in 1979, in the ITV drama No Mama No . In Jerry Springer – The Opera (BBC, 2005), the suggestion that the Christ character might be gay was found more controversial than the chant describing the Devil as "cunting, cunting, cunting, cunting cunt". In July 2007 BBC Three broadcast an hour-long documentary, entitled The 'C' Word , about

946-418: A name which potter Grayson Perry borrowed for one of his early works: "An unglazed piece of modest dimensions, made from terracotta like clay – labia carefully formed with once wet material, about its midriff". Australian artist Greg Taylor's display of scores of white porcelain vulvas, "CUNTS and other conversations" (2009), was deemed controversial for both its title and content, with Australia Post warning

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1032-466: A royal household, a palace in its original sense of the seat of power and administration. This other kind of count had vague antecedents in Late Antiquity too: the father of Cassiodorus held positions of trust with Theodoric, as comes rerum privatarum , in charge of the imperial lands, then as comes sacrarum largitionum ("count of the sacred doles"), concerned with the finances of the realm. In

1118-400: A rule historically unrelated and thus hard to compare, but which are considered "equivalent" in rank. This is the case with: The title "Count" in fiction is commonly, though not always, given to evil characters, used as another word for prince or vampires: Cunt " Cunt " ( / k ʌ n t / ) is a vulgar word for the vulva in its primary sense, but it is used in

1204-533: A term of affection, it had become "the most offensive insult one man could throw at another" and suggested that the word was "sacred", and "a word of immense power, to be used sparingly". Greer said in 2006 that " 'cunt' is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock." Cunt has been attested in its anatomical meaning since at least the 13th century. While Francis Grose 's 1785 A Classical Dictionary of The Vulgar Tongue listed

1290-533: A variety of ways, including as a term of disparagement . "Cunt" is often used as a disparaging and obscene term for a woman in the United States, an unpleasant or objectionable person (regardless of gender) in the United Kingdom and Ireland, or a contemptible man in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia and New Zealand, it can also be a neutral or positive term when used with a positive qualifier (e.g., "He's

1376-496: A wedge ", (figurative) " to squeeze in "), leading to English words such as cuneiform (" wedge-shaped "). In Middle English , cunt appeared with many spellings, such as coynte , cunte and queynte , which did not always reflect the actual pronunciation of the word. The word, in its modern meaning, is attested in Middle English. Proverbs of Hendyng , a manuscript from some time before 1325, includes

1462-601: A well publicised and violent assault. Meredith gently cautioned the girl to choose her words more carefully. As this was a live broadcast on the East Coast, the slurs already were already broadcast, but the producers removed the audio for the Central, Mountain, and Pacific feeds as well as online. Like the Fonda incident, Vieira issued an apology later in the show. Media Critic Thomas Francis commented on what he perceived to be hypocrisy in

1548-439: Is a distinction between counts (Swedish: greve ) created before and after 1809. All children in comital families elevated before 1809 were called count/countess. In families elevated after 1809, only the head of the family was called count, the rest have a status similar to barons and were called by the equivalent of "Mr/Ms/Mrs", before the recognition of titles of nobility was abolished. The following lists are originally based on

1634-553: Is a movement among feminists that seeks to reclaim cunt not only as acceptable, but as an honorific , in much the same way that queer has been reappropriated by LGBT people and nigger has been by some African-Americans . Proponents include artist Tee Corinne in The Cunt Coloring Book (1975); Eve Ensler in "Reclaiming Cunt" from The Vagina Monologues (1996); and Inga Muscio in her book, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (1998). Germaine Greer ,

1720-462: Is more taboo. Some American feminists of the 1970s sought to eliminate disparaging terms for women, including " bitch " and "cunt". In the context of pornography , Catharine MacKinnon argued that use of the word acts to reinforce a dehumanisation of women by reducing them to mere body parts; and in 1979 Andrea Dworkin described the word as reducing women to "the one essential – 'cunt: our essence ... our offence'". Despite criticisms, there

1806-530: Is no male to inherit the title and the count has a daughter, in some regions she could inherit the title. Many Italian counts left their mark on Italian history as individuals, yet only a few contadi (countships; the word contadini for inhabitants of a "county" remains the Italian word for "peasant") were politically significant principalities, notably: The principalities tended to start out as margraviate or (promoted to) duchy, and became nominal archduchies within

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1892-560: Is occasionally used in the titles of works of art, such as Peter Renosa's portrait of the pop singer Madonna , I am the Cunt of Western Civilization , from a 1990 quote by the singer. One of the first works of Gilbert & George was a self-portrait in 1969 entitled "Gilbert the Shit and George the Cunt". The London performance art group the Neo Naturists had a song and an act called "Cunt Power",

1978-603: Is very prolific on the peninsula. In the eleventh century, Conti like the Count of Savoy or the Norman Count of Apulia, were virtually sovereign lords of broad territories. Even apparently "lower"-sounding titles, like Viscount , could describe powerful dynasts, such as the House of Visconti which ruled a major city such as Milan . The essential title of a feudatory, introduced by the Normans,

2064-522: The Anglo-Saxons , originally not an obscenity but rather an ordinary name for the vulva or vagina. Gropecunt Lane was originally a street of prostitution, a red light district . It was normal in the Middle Ages for streets to be named after the goods available for sale therein, hence the prevalence in cities having a medieval history of names such as "Silver Street" and "Fish Street". In some locations,

2150-551: The BBC have guidelines which specify how "cunt" and similar words should be treated. In a survey of 2000 commissioned by the British Broadcasting Standards Commission , Independent Television Commission , BBC and Advertising Standards Authority , "cunt" was regarded as the most offensive word which could be heard, above " motherfucker " and " fuck ". Nevertheless, there have been occasions when, particularly in

2236-619: The First Bulgarian Empire , a komit was a hereditary provincial ruler under the tsar documented since the reign of Presian (836-852) The Cometopouli dynasty was named after its founder, the komit of Sredets . The title of Serdar was used in the Principality of Montenegro and the Principality of Serbia as a noble title below that of Voivode equivalent to that of Count. In Denmark and historically in Denmark-Norway

2322-505: The French comte , itself from Latin comes —in its accusative form comitem . It meant "companion" or "attendant", and as a title it indicated that someone was delegated to represent the ruler. In the late Roman Empire , the Latin title comes denoted the high rank of various courtiers and provincial officials, either military or administrative. Before Anthemius became emperor in

2408-631: The Titanic . In 2018, Canadian comedian Samantha Bee had to apologise after calling Ivanka Trump , a White House official and the daughter of US President Donald Trump , a "feckless cunt". On 6 December 2010 on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme , presenter James Naughtie referred to the British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt as "Jeremy Cunt"; he later apologised for what the BBC called

2494-516: The University of South Carolina , based on a corpus of nearly 9 billion words in geotagged tweets , the word was most frequently used in the United States in New England and was least frequently used in the south-eastern states. In Maine, it was the most frequently used "cuss word" after "asshole". James Joyce was one of the first major 20th-century novelists to put the word "cunt" into print. In

2580-403: The "proper" word vagina , a Latin name meaning "sword-sheath" originally applied by male anatomists to all muscle coverings (see synovial sheath ) – not just because it refers only to the internal canal but also because of the implication that the female body is "simply a receptacle for a weapon". But in 2006, referring to its use as a term of abuse, she said that, though used in some quarters as

2666-548: The 16th century all new peerages were always duchies and the medieval countship-peerages had died out, or were held by royal princes Other French countships of note included those of: See also above for parts of present France A Graf ruled over a territory known as a Grafschaft ('county'). See also various comital and related titles; especially those actually reigning over a principality: Gefürsteter Graf , Landgraf , Reichsgraf ; compare Markgraf , Burggraf , Pfalzgraf ( see Imperial quaternions ). The title of Conte

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2752-472: The 18th century onwards. It has produced several marshals : Two bishops and an archbishop: Also a famous minister, a diplomat, etc. : Count Count (feminine: countess ) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Especially in earlier medieval periods the term often implied not only

2838-429: The 19th century, the title, having lost its high rank (equivalent to that of Duke ), proliferated. Portugal itself started as a countship in 868, but became a kingdom in 1139 (see: County of Portugal ). Throughout the history of Portugal , especially during the constitutional monarchy many other countships were created. In Spain, no countships of wider importance exist, except in the former Spanish march. In

2924-466: The BBFC's guidelines at "15" state that "very strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification". Also directed by Loach, My Name is Joe was given a 15 certificate despite more than one instance of the word. The 2010 Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

3010-631: The Cuckoo's Nest (1975). Two early films by Martin Scorsese , Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976), use the word in the context of the virgin-whore dichotomy , with characters using it after they were rejected (in Mean Streets ) or after they have slept with the woman (in Taxi Driver ). In notable instances, the word has been edited out. Saturday Night Fever (1977) was released in two versions, "R" (Restricted) and "PG" (Parental Guidance),

3096-500: The Habsburg dynasty; noteworthy are: Apart from various small ones, significant were : Count/Countess was one of the noble titles granted by the Pope as a temporal sovereign, and the title's holder was sometimes informally known as a papal count/papal countess or less so as a Roman count/Roman countess, but mostly as count/countess. The comital title, which could be for life or hereditary,

3182-507: The Middle Ages the title of jarl (earl) was the highest title of nobility. The title was eventually replaced by the title of duke, but that title was abolished in Denmark and Norway as early as the Middle Ages. Titles were only reintroduced with the introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660, with count as the highest title. In Sweden the rank of count is the highest rank conferred upon nobles in

3268-835: The Proto-Germanic term is disputed. It may have arisen by Grimm's law operating on the Proto-Indo-European root *gen/gon " create, become " seen in gonads , genital , gamete , genetics , gene , or the Proto-Indo-European root *gʷneh₂/guneh₂ " woman " ( Greek : gunê , seen in gynaecology ). Similarly, its use in England likely evolved from the Latin word cunnus ("vulva"), or one of its derivatives French con , Spanish coño , and Portuguese cona . Other Latin words related to cunnus are cuneus (" wedge ") and its derivative cunēre (" to fasten with

3354-427: The United Kingdom, the title of earl is used instead of count . Although the exact reason is debated by historians and linguists, one of the more popular theories proposes that count fell into disuse because of its phonetic similarity to the vulgar slang word cunt . Originally, with the emergence of the title came the most powerful symbol of entitlement, that is the ownership of and jurisdiction over land, hence

3440-630: The West in 467, he was a military comes charged with strengthening defenses on the Danube frontier. In the Western Roman Empire , "count" came to indicate generically a military commander but was not a specific rank. In the Eastern Roman Empire , from about the seventh century, "count" was a specific rank indicating the commander of two centuriae (i.e., 200 men). The medieval title of comes

3526-548: The advice: Ȝeue þi cunte to cunnig and craue affetir wedding. (Give your cunt wisely and make [your] demands after the wedding.) The word cunt is generally regarded in English-speaking countries as profanity and unsuitable for normal public discourse. It has been described as "the most heavily tabooed word of all English words", although John Ayto, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Slang , says " nigger "

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3612-462: The artist that the publicity postcards were illegal. Theatre censorship was effectively abolished in the UK in 1968 ; prior to that, all theatrical productions had to be vetted by Lord Chamberlain's Office . English stand-up comedian Roy "Chubby" Brown claims that he was the first person to say the word on stage in the United Kingdom. Broadcast media is regulated for content, and media providers such as

3698-534: The context of one of the central characters in Ulysses (1922), Leopold Bloom , Joyce refers to the Dead Sea and to ... the oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. Joyce uses the word figuratively rather than literally; but while Joyce used

3784-651: The early Merovingian institution. The title had disappeared by the era of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , and the office had been replaced by others. Only after the Partitions of Poland did the title of "count" resurface in the title hrabia , derived from the German Graf . In the Frankish kingdoms in the early Middle Ages , a count might also be a count palatine , whose authority derived directly over

3870-414: The feminist writer and professor of English who once published a magazine article entitled "Lady, Love Your Cunt" (anthologised in 1986), discussed the origins, usage and power of the word in the BBC series Balderdash and Piffle , explaining how her views had developed over time. In the 1970s she had "championed" the use of the word for the female genitalia, thinking it "shouldn't be abusive"; she rejected

3956-552: The film edited for television the word is dubbed with the word scent . The 2010 film Kick-Ass caused a controversy when the word was used by Hit-Girl because the actress playing the part, Chloë Grace Moretz , was 11 years old at the time of filming. In Britain, use of the word "cunt" may result in an "18" rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), and this happened to Ken Loach 's film Sweet Sixteen , because of an estimated twenty uses of "cunt". Still,

4042-678: The first free Constitution of Denmark of 1849 came a complete abolition of the privileges of the nobility. Since then the title of count has been granted only to members of the Danish royal family , either as a replacement for a princely title when marrying a commoner, or in recent times, instead of that title in connection with divorce. Thus the first wife of Prince Joachim of Denmark , the younger son of Margrethe II of Denmark , became Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg on their divorce—initially retaining her title of princess, but losing it on her remarriage. In

4128-765: The former name has been bowdlerised , as in the City of York, to the more acceptable " Grape Lane ". The somewhat similar word 'queynte' appears several times in Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales (c. 1390), in bawdy contexts, but since it is used openly, does not appear to have been considered obscene at that time. A notable use is from the " Miller's Tale ": "Pryvely he caught her by the queynte." The Wife of Bath also uses this term, "For certeyn, olde dotard, by your leave/You shall have queynte right enough at eve .... What aileth you to grouche thus and groan?/Is it for ye would have my queynte alone?" In modernised versions of these passages

4214-471: The inadvertent use of "an offensive four-letter word". In the programme following, about an hour later, Andrew Marr referred to the incident during Start the Week where it was said that "we won't repeat the mistake" whereupon Marr slipped up in the same way as Naughtie had. In the United States, the word's first appearance was in graffiti on a wall in the 1969 film Bronco Bullfrog . The first spoken use of

4300-589: The latter omitting or replacing dialogue such as Tony Manero ( John Travolta )'s comment to Annette ( Donna Pescow ), "It's a decision a girl's gotta make early in life, if she's gonna be a nice girl or a cunt". This differential persists, and in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Agent Starling ( Jodie Foster ) meets Dr. Hannibal Lecter ( Anthony Hopkins ) for the first time and passes the cell of "Multiple Miggs", who says to Starling: "I can smell your cunt." In versions of

4386-593: The list of the seven dirty words that could not, at that time, be said on American broadcast television, a routine that led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision. While some of the original seven are now heard on US broadcast television from time to time, "cunt" remains generally taboo except on premium paid subscription cable channels like HBO or Showtime. Comedian Louis C.K. uses the term frequently in his stage act as well as on his television show Louie on FX network, which bleeps it out. In 2018, Canadian comedian Samantha Bee had to apologise after calling Ivanka Trump

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4472-414: The media industry: Isn't it interesting how the national media licks its chops over this story, delighting in every gory detail, only to caution a 13-year-old girl to be "careful about our language"? Why should she be careful, Meredith? Because there are 13-year-old girls in the audience? There's so much violence and vulgarity in modern American culture, words like cunt are like so many deck chairs on

4558-511: The modern era and are, like their Danish and Norwegian counterparts, broadly comparable to that of dukes in other European countries. Unlike the rest of Scandinavia, the title of duke is still used in Sweden, but only by members of the royal family and are not considered part of the nobility. Like other major Western noble titles , Count is sometimes used to render certain titles in non-western languages with their own traditions, even though they are as

4644-548: The monarch as an honorific title for special services rendered, without a feudal estate (countship, county) being attached, so it was merely a title, with or without a domain name attached to it. In the United Kingdom , the equivalent "Earl" can also be used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of a duke or marquess. In the Italian states , by contrast, all the sons of certain counts were little counts ( contini ). In Sweden there

4730-420: The obscene meaning of the word without being explicit in his poem The Good-Morrow , referring to sucking on "country pleasures". The 1675 Restoration comedy The Country Wife also features such word play, even in its title. By the 17th century, a softer form of the word, "cunny", came into use. A well-known use of this derivation can be found in the 25 October 1668 entry of the diary of Samuel Pepys . He

4816-616: The origin of the Proto-Germanic form itself. There are cognates in most Germanic languages, most of which also have the same meaning as the English cunt, such as the Swedish, Faroese and Nynorsk kunta ; West Frisian and Middle Low German kunte ; another Middle Low German kutte ; Middle High German kotze (meaning " prostitute "); modern German kott ; Middle Dutch conte ; modern Dutch words kut (same meaning) and kont ("butt", "arse"); and perhaps Old English cot . The etymology of

4902-659: The origins, use and evolution of the word from the early 1900s to the present day. Presented by British comedian Will Smith , viewers were taken to a street in Oxford once called Gropecunt Lane and presented with examples of the acceptability of "cunt" as a word. (Note that "the C-word" is also a long-standing euphemism for cancer; Lisa Lynch 's book led to a BBC1 drama, both with that title. ) The Attitudes to potentially offensive language and gestures on TV and radio report by Ofcom , based on research conducted by Ipsos MORI , categorised

4988-469: The point that the accent is definitely on the first syllable of country , Shakespeare has Hamlet say, "That's a fair thought, to lie between maids' legs." In Twelfth Night (Act II, Scene V) the puritanical Malvolio believes he recognises his employer's handwriting in an anonymous letter, commenting "There be her very Cs, her Us, and her Ts: and thus makes she her great Ps", unwittingly punning on "cunt" and "piss", and while it has also been argued that

5074-506: The process of indygenat , naturalisation. Somewhat similar to the native privileged class of nobles found in Poland, Hungary also had a class of Conditional nobles . As opposed to the plethora of hollow "gentry" counts, only a few countships ever were important in medieval Iberia ; most territory was firmly within the Reconquista kingdoms before counts could become important. However, during

5160-659: The purchaser of land designated "feudal" was ennobled by the noble seat that he held and became a conte . This practice ceased with the formal abolition of feudalism in the various principalities of early-19th century Italy, last of all in the Papal States . Poland was notable throughout its history for not granting titles of nobility. This was on the premise that one could only be born into nobility, outside rare exceptions. Instead, it conferred non-hereditary courtly or civic roles . The noble titles that were in use on its territory were mostly of foreign provenance and usually subject to

5246-436: The same term for a cat. ( Philip Massinger (1583–1640) : "A pox upon your Christian cockatrices ! They cry, like poulterers' wives, 'No money, no coney.'") Because of this slang use as a synonym for a taboo term, the word "coney", when it was used in its original sense to refer to rabbits, came to be pronounced as / ˈ k oʊ n i / (rhymes with "phoney"), instead of the original /ˈkʌni/ (rhymes with "honey"). Eventually,

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5332-641: The slang term "cut" is intended, Pauline Kiernan writes that Shakespeare ridicules "prissy puritanical party-poopers" by having "a Puritan spell out the word 'cunt' on a public stage". A related scene occurs in Henry V : when Katherine is learning English, she is appalled at the gros, et impudique words "foot" and "gown", which her teacher has mispronounced as coun . It is usually argued that Shakespeare intends to suggest that she has misheard "foot" as foutre (French, "fuck") and "coun" as con (French "cunt", also used to mean "idiot"). Similarly, John Donne alludes to

5418-439: The taboo association led to the word "coney" becoming deprecated entirely and replaced by the word "rabbit". Robert Burns (1759–1796) used the word in his Merry Muses of Caledonia , a collection of bawdy verses which he kept to himself and were not publicly available until the mid-1960s. In "Yon, Yon, Yon, Lassie", this couplet appears: "For ilka birss upon her cunt, Was worth a ryal ransom" ("For every hair upon her cunt

5504-455: The term county . The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the control of a count ( earl ) or a viscount . The modern French is comté , and its equivalents in other languages are contea , contado , comtat , condado , Grafschaft , graafschap , etc. (cf. conte , comte , conde , Graf ). The title of Count was also often conferred by

5590-462: The title of count ( greve ) is the highest rank of nobility used in the modern period. Some Danish/Dano-Norwegian countships were associated with fiefs , and these counts were known as "feudal counts" ( lensgreve ). They rank above ordinary (titular) counts, and their position in the Danish aristocracy as the highest-ranking noblemen is broadly comparable to that of dukes in other European countries. With

5676-399: The usage of the word 'cunt' as a highly unacceptable pre- watershed , but generally acceptable post-watershed, along with 'fuck' and 'motherfucker'. Discriminatory words were generally considered as more offensive than the most offensive non-discriminatory words such as 'cunt' by the UK public, with discriminatory words being more regulated as a result. The first scripted use on US television

5762-512: The word queynte seems to be used with meaning comparable to the modern "quaint" (curious or old-fashioned, but nevertheless appealing). This ambiguity was still being exploited by the 17th century; Andrew Marvell 's ... then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity, / And your quaint honour turn to dust, / And into ashes all my lust in To His Coy Mistress depends on a pun on these two senses of "quaint". By Shakespeare's day,

5848-457: The word "queynte" is usually translated simply as "cunt". However, in Chaucer's usage there seems to be an overlap between the words "cunt" and "quaint" (possibly derived from the Latin for "known"). "Quaint" was probably pronounced in Middle English in much the same way as "cunt". It is sometimes unclear whether the two words were thought of as distinct from one another. Elsewhere in Chaucer's work

5934-544: The word as "C**T: a nasty name for a nasty thing", it did not appear in any major English dictionary from 1795 to 1961, when it was included in Webster's Third New International Dictionary with the comment "usu. considered obscene". Its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1972, which cites the word as having been in use from 1230 in what was supposedly a London street name of "Gropecunte Lane". It was, however, also used before 1230, having been brought over by

6020-614: The word in his acts, which got him arrested in Queensland and Western Australia for breaching obscenity laws of those states in the mid-1980s. Australian comedic singer Kevin Bloody Wilson makes extensive use of the word, most notably in the songs Caring Understanding Nineties Type and You Can't Say "Cunt" in Canada . The word appears in American comic George Carlin 's 1972 standup routine on

6106-590: The word in mainstream cinema occurs in Carnal Knowledge (1971), in which Jonathan ( Jack Nicholson ) asks, "Is this an ultimatum? Answer me, you ball-busting, castrating, son of a cunt bitch! Is this an ultimatum or not?" In the same year, the word was used in the film Women in Revolt , in which Holly Woodlawn shouts "I love cunt" whilst avoiding a violent boyfriend. Nicholson later used it again, in One Flew Over

6192-449: The word is used in the draft of a love letter mistakenly sent instead of a revised version and, although not spoken, is an important plot pivot. Irvine Welsh uses the word widely in his novels, such as Trainspotting , generally as a generic placeholder for a man, and not always negatively, e.g. "Ah wis the cunt wi the fuckin pool cue in ma hand, n the plukey cunt could huv the fat end ay it in his pus if he wanted, like." The word

6278-503: The word on a live airing of the Today Show , a network broadcast-TV news program, in 2008 when being interviewed by co-host Meredith Vieira about The Vagina Monologues . Coincidentally, nearly two years later in 2010, also on the Today Show , Vieira interviewed a thirteen-year-old girl said the word twice to describe the contents of text messages she was privy to that were central to

6364-529: The word only once in Ulysses , with four other wordplays ('cunty') on it, D. H. Lawrence later used the word ten times in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), in a more direct sense. Mellors, the gamekeeper and eponymous lover, tries delicately to explain the definition of the word to Lady Constance Chatterley: "If your sister there comes ter me for a bit o' cunt an' tenderness, she knows what she's after." The novel

6450-498: The word seems to have become obscene. Although Shakespeare does not use the word explicitly (or with derogatory meaning) in his plays, he still uses wordplay to sneak it in obliquely. In Act III, Scene 2, of Hamlet , as the castle's residents are settling in to watch the play-within-the-play , Hamlet asks his girlfriend Ophelia , "Lady, shall I lie in your lap?" Ophelia replies, "No, my lord." Hamlet, feigning shock, says, "Do you think I meant country matters ?" Then, to drive home

6536-560: The word was recorded in some areas as meaning "the vulva of a cow". This was pronounced as [kʌnt] in Devon , and [kʊnt] in the Isle of Man , Gloucestershire and Northumberland . Possibly related was the word cunny [kʌni], with the same meaning, in Wiltshire . The word "cunty" is also known, although used rarely: a line from Hanif Kureishi 's My Beautiful Laundrette is the definition of England by

6622-453: Was signore , modeled on the French seigneur , used with the name of the fief . By the fourteenth century, conte and the Imperial title barone were virtually synonymous . Some titles of a count, according to the particulars of the patent, might be inherited by the eldest son of a Count. Younger brothers might be distinguished as "X dei conti di Y" ("X of the counts of Y"). However, if there

6708-412: Was a pairie , i.e. carried the exclusive rank of pair ; within the first (i.e. clerical) and second (noble) estates, the first three of the original twelve anciennes pairies were ducal, the next three comital comté-pairies : Later other countships (and duchies, even baronies) have been raised to this French peerage, but mostly as apanages (for members of the royal house) or for foreigners; after

6794-541: Was awarded in various forms by popes and Holy Roman Emperors since the Middle Ages, infrequently before the 14th century, and the pope continued to grant the comital and other noble titles even after 1870, it was largely discontinued in the mid 20th-century, on the accession of John XXIII . The Papacy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies might appoint counts palatine with no particular territorial fief. Until 1812 in some regions,

6880-401: Was discovered having an affair with Deborah Willet: he wrote that his wife "coming up suddenly, did find me embracing the girl con [with] my hand sub [under] su [her] coats; and endeed I was with my main [hand] in her cunny. I was at a wonderful loss upon it and the girl also ...." Cunny was probably derived from a pun on coney , meaning "rabbit", rather as pussy is connected to

6966-623: Was given a "15" rating despite containing seven uses of the word. The BBFC have also allowed it at the "12" level, in the case of well known works such as Hamlet. In their Derek and Clive dialogues, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore , particularly Cook, used the word in the 1976 sketch "This Bloke Came Up To Me", with "cunt" used 35 times. The word is also used extensively by British comedian Roy 'Chubby' Brown , which ensures that his stand-up act has never been fully shown on UK television. Australian stand-up comedian Rodney Rude frequently refers to his audiences as "cunts" and makes frequent use of

7052-480: Was not considered vulgar in the Middle Ages , but became so during the seventeenth century, and it was omitted from dictionaries from the late eighteenth century until the 1960s. The etymology of cunt is a matter of debate, but most sources consider the word to have derived from a Germanic word ( Proto-Germanic *kuntō , stem *kuntōn- ), which appeared as kunta in Old Norse . Scholars are uncertain of

7138-608: Was on the Larry Sanders Show in 1992, and a notable use occurred in Sex and the City . In the US, an episode of the NBC TV show 30 Rock , titled " The C Word ", centered around a subordinate calling protagonist Liz Lemon ( Tina Fey ) a "cunt" and her subsequent efforts to regain her staff's favour. Characters in the popular TV series The Sopranos often used the term. Jane Fonda uttered

7224-474: Was originally not hereditary. It was regarded as an administrative official dependent on the king, until the process of allodialisation during the 9th century in which such titles came to be private possessions of noble families. By virtue of their large estates, many counts could pass the title to their heirs—but not always. For instance, in Piast Poland , the position of komes was not hereditary, resembling

7310-521: Was the subject of an unsuccessful UK prosecution in 1961 against its publishers, Penguin Books , on grounds of obscenity. Samuel Beckett was an associate of Joyce, and in his Malone Dies (1956), he writes: "His young wife had abandoned all hope of bringing him to heel, by means of her cunt, that trump card of young wives." In 1998, Inga Muscio published Cunt: A Declaration of Independence . In Ian McEwan 's novel Atonement (2001), set in 1935,

7396-480: Was worth a royal ransom" ). Merriam-Webster states it is a "usually disparaging and obscene" term for a woman, and that it is an "offensive way to refer to a woman" in the United States. In American slang , the term can also be used to refer to "a fellow male homosexual one dislikes". Australian scholar Emma Alice Jane describes how the term as used on modern social media is an example of what she calls "gendered vitriol", and an example of misogynistic e-bile. As

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