Fart is an
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
vulgarism"Vulgarism" derives from Latin vulgus, the "mean folk", and has carried into English its original connotations linking it with the low and coarse motivations that were supposed to be naturally endemic to the meaner classes, who were not moved by higher motives like fame for posterity and honor...
most commonly used in reference to
flatulenceFlatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The mixture of gases is known as flatus, fart, or simply gas, and is expelled from the rectum in a process colloquially referred to as "passing gas" or...
. The word "fart" is generally considered unsuitable in a formal environment by modern English speakers, and it may be considered
vulgarVulgar is the fourth studio album released by Dir en grey on September 10, 2003 in Japan and on February 21, 2006 in Europe. A limited edition containing an additional DVD was also released. It featured the video of the song "Obscure", albeit a censored version...
or offensive in some situations.
Fart can be used as a
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
or a
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
. The immediate roots are in the Middle English words
ferten,
feortan or
farten; which is akin to the Old High German word
ferzan.
Fart is an
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
vulgarism"Vulgarism" derives from Latin vulgus, the "mean folk", and has carried into English its original connotations linking it with the low and coarse motivations that were supposed to be naturally endemic to the meaner classes, who were not moved by higher motives like fame for posterity and honor...
most commonly used in reference to
flatulenceFlatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The mixture of gases is known as flatus, fart, or simply gas, and is expelled from the rectum in a process colloquially referred to as "passing gas" or...
. The word "fart" is generally considered unsuitable in a formal environment by modern English speakers, and it may be considered
vulgarVulgar is the fourth studio album released by Dir en grey on September 10, 2003 in Japan and on February 21, 2006 in Europe. A limited edition containing an additional DVD was also released. It featured the video of the song "Obscure", albeit a censored version...
or offensive in some situations.
Fart can be used as a
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
or a
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
. The immediate roots are in the Middle English words
ferten,
feortan or
farten; which is akin to the Old High German word
ferzan. Cognates are found in old Norse, Slavic and also Greek and Sanskrit. The word "fart" has been incorporated into the
colloquialA colloquialism is an expression not used in formal speech, writing or paralinguistics. Colloquialisms are also sometimes referred to collectively as "colloquial language". Colloquialisms or colloquial language is considered to be characteristic of or only appropriate for casual, ordinary,...
and
technical speechJargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, or group. In other words, the term most often covers the language used by people who work in a particular area or who have a common interest...
of a number of occupations, including computing.
Fart is sometimes used as a nonspecific derogatory
epithetAn epithet is a descriptive word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing, which has become a fixed formula...
, 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. The phrase 'boring old fart' was popularised in the UK in the late 1970s 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.
Etymology
The English word
fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary. Its
Indo-EuropeanThe Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and there have been many attempts at reconstruction...
origins are confirmed by the many
cognateCognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymological origin.An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt and skirt, the former from Old English scyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjōn-. Words with this type...
words in other
Indo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
: It is cognate with
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
πέρδομαι (perdomai), Latin
pēdĕre,
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
pardate,
AvestanAvestan is an Eastern Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. The language must also at some time have been a natural language, but how long ago that was is unknown...
pərəδaiti, and
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
пердеть (perdet'),
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
"pierd" <<
PIEA pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough shell that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients...
*perd [break wind loudly] or *pezd [the same, softly] (with a Polish
false friendFalse friends are pairs of words in two languages or dialects that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning....
"fart" meaning "fluke, good luck") all of which mean the same thing. Like most Indo-European roots in the
Germanic languagesThe Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, it was altered by
Grimm's lawGrimm's law named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC...
, so that Indo-European
/p/ >
/f/, and
/d/ >
/t/, as the
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
cognate
furzen also manifests.
Vulgarity and offensiveness
In certain circles the word is considered merely a common
profanityThe original meaning of the adjective profane referred to items not belonging to the church, e.g...
with an often humorous
connotationConnotationsubjective cultural and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotative meaning of any specific word or phrase in alanguage, i.e. emotional association with a word.-Usage:...
. 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 boring or overly 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 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 others. When used in an attempt to be offensive, the word is still considered vulgar, but it remains a mild example of such an insult. This usage dates back to the Medieval period, where the phrase 'not worth a fart' would be applied to an item held to be worthless.
Historical examples
The word
fart in
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing...
occurs in "
Sumer Is Icumen In"Sumer Is Icumen In" is a traditional English round, and possibly the oldest such example of counterpoint in existence. The title might be translated as "Summer has come in" or "Summer has arrived"....
", where one sign of summer is "bucke uerteþ" (the
buckDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. They include for example Moose, Red Deer, Reindeer, Roe and Chital. Animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla are often also considered to be deer – these include muntjac and water deer...
farts). It appears in several of
Geoffrey ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales...
's
Canterbury Tales. In "The Miller's Tale", Absolon has already been tricked into kissing Alison's buttocks when he is expecting to kiss her face. Her boyfriend Nicholas hangs his
buttocksThe buttocks are rounded portions of the anatomy located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, including many other bipeds or quadrupeds.-Anatomy:...
out of a window, hoping to trick Absolon into kissing his buttocks in turn and then passes gas in the face of his rival. In "The Summoner's Tale", the friars in the story are to receive the smell of a fart through a twelve spoked wheel.
The word
fart was in pre-modern times not considered especially vulgar and could often be encountered in literary works.
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative, and has been...
's
A Dictionary of the English LanguagePublished on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
, published in 1755, included the word. Johnson defined it with two poems, one by
Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
, the other by
Sir John SucklingSir John Suckling, was an English poet and one prominent figure among those renowned for careless gayety, wit, and all the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet, and the supposed inventor of the card game Cribbage...
. In 1607, a group of Members of Parliament had written a ribald poem entitled
The Parliament Fart, as a symbolic protest against the conservatism of the
House of LordsThe House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is also commonly referred to as "the Lords". Parliament comprises the Sovereign, the House of Commons , and the Lords...
and the king,
James IJames VI & I was King of Scots as James VI from 1567 to 1625, and King of England and Ireland as James I from 1603 to 1625....
.
Modern usage
By the early twentieth century, the word "fart" had come to be considered rather vulgar in most English-speaking cultures. While not one of
George CarlinGeorge Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian. He was also an actor and author, and he won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
's original
seven dirty wordsThe seven dirty words are seven English-language words that comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". At the time, the words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United...
, 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), and described television as (then) a "fart-free zone".
Thomas WolfeThomas Clayton Wolfe was an acclaimed American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novel fragments. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodical, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...
had the phrase 'a fizzing and sulphuric fart' cut out of his 1929 work
Look Homeward, AngelLook Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel covers the span of time...
by his publisher.
Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American writer and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation." He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, and the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, who had the same publisher, accepted the principle that fart could be cut, on the grounds that no one should use words only to shock. The hippy movement in the 1970s saw a new definition develop, with the use of fart as a personal noun, to describe a 'detestable person, or someone of small stature or limited mental capacity', gaining wider and more open usage as a result.
Rhyming slang developed the alternative form 'Raspberry Tart', later shortened to 'Raspberry', and occasionally 'Razz'. This was associated with the phrase 'blowing a raspberry'. The word has become more prevalent, and now features in children's literature, such as the
Walter the Farting DogWalter the Farting Dog is a series of children's books by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, and illustrated by Audrey Colman. All the books in the series star Walter and his many flatulent adventures. In 2007 the fifth book in the series, Walter the Farting Dog: Banned From the Beach, was released...
series of children's books,
Robert MunschRobert Norman Munsch, CM is an American-born Canadian children's author.-Personal life and career:Robert Munsch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
's
Good Families Don't and
The Gas We PassThe Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts is a children's book written by Shinta Cho. The book tells children about flatulence , and that it is completely natural to do so. Everyone Poops is a prequel....
by Shinta Cho. Teachers in American schools have been encouraged to use books about farts to make children more comfortable with the word.
According to the
The Alphabet of Manliness, the assigning of blame for farting is part of a ritual of behaviour. This may involve deception and a back and forth rhyming game.
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. 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 seizureAbsence seizures are one of several kinds of seizures. These seizures are sometimes referred to as petit mal seizures ....
. 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'.
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 humourToilet humour, or scatological humour, is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, urination, flatulence, vomiting and other bodily functions. Public reference to bodily functions is taboo in many cultures...
. It has also been used in the term 'fart sack',
military slangMilitary humor is humor based on stereotypes of military life. Military humor portrays a wide range of characters and situations in the armed forces. It comes in a wide array of cultures and tastes, making use of sarcasm, parody, burlesque, exaggeration, ridicule, and double entendre.Military humor...
for a bed or
sleeping bagA 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 . Its primary purpose is to provide warmth and thermal insulation...
. A 'nun's fart' is a French term for a type of sweet dessert sprinkled with sugar.
External links