Cunt

Cunt ( /ˈkʌnt/) is a word that primarily describes the female genitalia, particularly the vulva, and is widely considered to be vulgar. The earliest citation of this usage in the 1972 Oxford English Dictionary, c 1230, refers to the London street known as Gropecunt Lane. Scholar Germaine Greer has said that "it is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock."

Cunt is also used as a derogatory epithet referring to people of either sex. This usage is relatively recent, dating from the late nineteenth century. Reflecting different national usages, cunt is described as "an unpleasant or stupid person" in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, whereas Merriam-Webster has a usage of the term as "usually disparaging and obscene: woman", noting that it is used in the U.S. as "an offensive way to refer to a woman"; the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English states that it is "a despicable man", however when used with a positive qualifier (good, funny, clever, etc.) in Britain, New Zealand and Australia, it can convey a positive sense of the object or person referred to.

The word appears to have been in common usage from the Middle Ages until the eighteenth century. After a period of disuse, usage became more frequent in the twentieth century, in parallel with the rise of popular literature and pervasive media. The term also has various other derived uses and, like fuck and its derivatives, has been used mutatis mutandis as noun, pronoun, adjective, participle and other parts of speech.