bitch
English
Etymology
From Middle English biche, bicche, from Old English biċċe, from Proto-West Germanic *bikkjā, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ (compare Norwegian bikkje (“dog”), Old Danish bikke), from *bikjaną (“to thrust, attack”) (compare Old Norse bikkja (“plunge into water”), Dutch bikken (“to hack”)). More at bicker.
Pronunciation
Noun
bitch (countable and uncountable, plural bitches)
- (dated or specialised, dog-breeding) A female dog or other canine, particularly a recent mother.
- My bitch just had puppies; they're so cute!
- 1953, LIFE, volume 34, number 6, page 110:
- All members of one breed, both dog and bitch, champion and nonchampion, are judged in a series of competitions until only one animal remains.
- (archaic, offensive) A promiscuous woman, slut, whore.[1]
- (vulgar, offensive) A despicable or disagreeable, aggressive person, usually a woman. [from 15th c.]
- Ann spread rumors about me; she's such a bitch.
- 1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Symptomes of Iealousie, Fear, Sorrow, Suspition, Strange Actions, Gestures, Outrages, Locking Up, Oathes, Trials, Lawes, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 3, member 2, subsection 1, page 610:
- He cals her on a ſudden, all to naught; ſhe is a ſtrumpet, a light huswife, a bitch, an arrant whore.
- 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Chapter 4”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
- 'Look at the children, you nasty little bitch!' he sneered.
- 1962 [1959], William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, New York: Grove Press, page 83:
- HASSAN: "You cheap Factualist bitch! Go and never darken my rumpus room again!"
- (vulgar, offensive) A woman.
- 1996, “Hit 'Em Up”, in Tupac Shakur and the Outlawz (lyrics), Johnny "J" (music), Hit 'Em Up[1], performed by 2Pac, California: Death Row Records:
- Biggie, remember when I used to let you sleep on the couch, and beg the bitch to let you sleep in the house?
- 2003, “If I Can't”, in Curtis Jackson (lyrics), Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo (music), Get Rich or Die Tryin', performed by 50 Cent, New York City: Shady Records:
- Niggas on my dick more than my bitches.
- (vulgar, offensive) A man considered weak, effeminate, timid or pathetic in some way
- (LGBT, slang, derogatory) An obviously gay man.[2]
- (vulgar, offensive) A submissive person who does what others want; (prison slang) a man forced or coerced into a homoerotic relationship. [from the 20th c]
- Dude, don't be a bitch. Assert yourself.
- You're so weak-willed with your girlfriend. You must be the real bitch in the relationship.
- 1999 September 23, Chris Sheridan, “This House Is Freakin’ Sweet”, “Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater”, Family Guy, season 2, episode 1, Fox Broadcasting Company
- Now that you're stinking rich, we'd gladly be your bitch.
- (obsolete, informal, of a man) A playful variation on dog (sense "man"). [from the 16th c]
- (humorous, vulgar, colloquial, used with a possessive pronoun) Friend. [from the 20th c]
- What’s up, bitch?
- How my bitches been doin'?
- (vulgar, colloquial) A complaint, especially when the complaint is unjustified.
- (colloquial, vulgar) A difficult or confounding problem.
- That level was a real bitch, don’t you think?
- That's a bitch of a question.
- (colloquial, vulgar, card games) A queen playing card, particularly the queen of spades in the card game of hearts.
- Coordinate term: butcher
- (vulgar, figurative) Something unforgiving and unpleasant.
- Karma's a bitch.
- (vulgar, informal, slang) Place; situation
- I'm 'bout to get up outta this bitch.
- (UK, obsolete, university slang) Tea (the drink).
- 1824, Gradus Ad Cantabrigiam: Or, New University Guide to the Academical Customs, and Colloquial Or Cant Terms Peculiar to the University of Cambridge, Observing Wherein It Differs from Oxford, page 131:
- […] seldom gets "a little the worse for liquor," gives no swell parties, runs very little into debt, takes his cup of bitch at night, and goes quietly to bed, and thus he passes his time in a way a Varmint man would despise.
- (chess, slang, vulgar, offensive) A queen.
Usage notes
- While bitch's original canine sense permits it to be used in most media, it remains offensive enough that, in the US, it is often minced (as b, b-word, or female dog) in formal contexts.
Alternative forms
- (offensive senses):
- biatch/biotch; beatch/beotch
- bih
- binch
- bish
- biyatch/biyotch; beeyatch/beeyotch
- bizatch/biz-atch/biznatch
Euphemisms:
Synonyms
- (female dog, etc): doggess (rare), female (when the species is specified or implied), she-dog
- (malicious, etc, woman): See Thesaurus:shrew or Thesaurus:jerk
- (malicious, etc, man): See Thesaurus:bastard or Thesaurus:jerk
- (jocular slang, one's friend): See Thesaurus:friend
- (person in a relationship who is made to adopt a submissive role): doormat, slave
- (man forced into a homoerotic relationship in prison): punk, gunsel
- (a complaint): gripe, grumble, kvetch, moan, whinge
- (difficult or confounding problem): toughie, stinker, pain in the ass
Hyponyms
Female canine
Derived terms
- bad bitch
- basic bitch
- bastich
- biker bitch
- bitch and a half
- bitch-ass
- bitch bag
- bitchboy
- bitchcakes
- bitchcraft
- bitchcunt
- bitchdom
- bitch eating crackers
- bitcher
- bitchery
- bitchette
- bitchface
- bitchfest
- bitchfight
- bitch fight
- bitchfit
- bitchfucker
- bitch goddess
- bitchhood
- bitch hound
- bitch-hound
- bitchin'
- bitchiness
- bitching
- bitchitis
- bitchless
- bitchlet
- bitchlike
- bitchling
- bitchload
- bitchly
- bitch-made
- bitch magnet
- bitchness
- bitch off
- bitchola
- bitch out
- bitch-out
- bitch, please
- bitch seat
- bitch shield
- bitch-slap
- bitch slap
- bitchslut
- bitch switch
- bitchtits
- bitch tits
- bitch up
- bitchwad
- bitchwhore
- bitch-whore
- bitchwork
- bitchy
- bitchy-pants
- bitchzilla
- black bitch
- bottom bitch
- bull-bitch
- Cumberbitch
- cuntbitch
- daughter of a bitch
- dish bitch
- door bitch
- drunk as a fiddler's bitch
- fembitch
- flip a bitch
- he-bitch
- kitchen bitch
- life's a bitch
- life's a bitch and then you die
- like a bitch
- like a bitch on heat
- main bitch
- manbitch
- megabitch
- mollying-bitch
- niggerbitch
- outbitch
- prison bitch
- psychobitch
- resting bitch face
- ride bitch
- she-bitch
- she bitch
- side bitch
- skinny bitch
- slitch
- slutbitch
- snitch bitch
- son of a bitch, sonofabitch
- succubitch
- superbitch
- unbitch
- witch
Descendants
Translations
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References
- Weisenberg, Michael (2000) The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. →ISBN
Verb
bitch (third-person singular simple present bitches, present participle bitching, simple past and past participle bitched)
- (vulgar, intransitive) To behave or act as a bitch.
- (vulgar, intransitive) To criticize spitefully, often for the sake of complaining rather than in order to have the problem corrected.
- All you ever do is bitch about the food I cook for you!
- 2008, Patterson Hood, The Righteous Path:
- I ain't bitching 'bout things that aren't in my grasp
Just trying to hold steady on the righteous path.
- (vulgar, transitive) To spoil, to ruin.
- 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 162:
- 'You're a Franco-maniac…You're thought to be a French agent…That's what's bitching your career!'
- 1956, Ian Fleming, Diamonds are Forever, published 1965, page 100:
- "Shy Smile didn't pay off." "I know. The jockey bitched it. So what?"
Synonyms
- (make derogatory comments): badmouth, slag off (UK), snipe
- (complain spitefully): See Thesaurus:complain
Derived terms
Translations
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References
- ^ Geoffrey Hughes, Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2006:
The early applications were to a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a bitch in heat. Herein lies the original point of the powerful insult son of a bitch, found as biche sone ca. 1330 in Arthur and Merlin ... while in a spirited exchange in the Chester Play (ca. 1400) a character demands: “Whom callest thou queine, skabde bitch?” (“Who are you calling a whore, you miserable bitch?”). - ^ A. F. Niemoeller, "A Glossary of Homosexual Slang," Fact 2, no. 1 (Jan-Feb 1965): 25
Dutch
Etymology
Borrowed from English bitch, from Middle English biche, bicche, from Old English biċċe, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ.
Pronunciation
Noun
bitch f (plural bitches, diminutive bitchje n)
- (derogatory) bitch (somewhat general term of abuse for a woman; disagreeable, assertive, aggressive or malicious woman)
- (derogatory) bitch (person in a submissive or low-placed position)
Related terms
French
Etymology
Borrowed from English bitch, from Middle English biche, bicche, from Old English biċċe, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ. Doublet of bichon.
Pronunciation
Noun
bitch f (plural bitchs)
- bitch (disagreeable, despicable woman)
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰeg- (break)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɪtʃ
- Rhymes:English/ɪtʃ/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English dated terms
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with archaic senses
- English offensive terms
- English vulgarities
- en:LGBT
- English slang
- English derogatory terms
- English prison slang
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English informal terms
- English humorous terms
- English colloquialisms
- en:Card games
- British English
- en:Chess
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English transitive verbs
- en:Dogs
- en:Female animals
- English contranyms
- English swear words
- English terms of address
- Dutch terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Dutch terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰeg- (break)
- Dutch terms borrowed from English
- Dutch terms derived from English
- Dutch terms derived from Middle English
- Dutch terms derived from Old English
- Dutch terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation
- Dutch terms with audio links
- Dutch lemmas
- Dutch nouns
- Dutch feminine nouns
- Dutch derogatory terms
- French terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- French terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰeg- (break)
- French terms borrowed from English
- French terms derived from English
- French terms derived from Middle English
- French terms derived from Old English
- French terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- French doublets
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns