It is so strange, but as the days creep past I find myself in need of a few old curse words.
These gentlemen are clearly cussing softly to each other.
Swear Words used during the Regency period:
Swag bellied - fat
Maggot pie - lowest of the low
Bally - a shortening of ballocks, which means balls
Deuced - screwed over, damned
Dad - meaning God
Sard - *uck……………* = f
Blimey - oh shit
Berk - a tem for the c word %unt………% = c
Gosh - GOD
Crikey - WOW, I mean WOW!
Adventuress - whore
Ass - same as ever
Balls or ballocks- testicles
Bitch - meaning slutty and used for men and women
Bull - thought to be taboo because of how virile a gentleman cow is
Crap - shit
Strumpet - whore
Cherry - a maiden’s vagina
Dashed - damned
Cocksucker or cockchafer - you know this one
Imp - devil
Fool - idiot
Dad shamed - shamed by God
Macaroni - effeminate male
Damn - yep
clap - V.D. (Venereal Disease)
Devil - satan
Bloody - damn
Dickens - hell or damnation
Fuck - a very bad word
Dafted - dumb
Redneck - a poor person living in the country
Sodomite - a homosexual male
Necessary - the bathroom
Boat-licker meaning ass-kisser
Randy - feeling sexy
Fart- as in, I don’t give a fart
Blame - Damn
Tarnation - a popular sub for damnation
Contemptible - terrible, looked down upon
Horney - wanting the sex
Sit down upons - underpants
Inexpressibles - pants. It was not nice to speak of pants in public
Quim - vagina
Jesse - hell
Lick-finger or lick-spittle - kiss-ass
Knock up - get pregnant……..who knew how old school this term was…….not me
Nancy Boy - effeminate male
Limb - leg…….it was extremely bad taste to talk of the hidden body parts of the time
Piss - pee-pee
Twat - *unt
Whoremonger - a frequent whore visitor
Prick - small penis
Puss - self explanatory
Snatch - puss
Shit - poop
Urchin - disgusting
Tarnal- damn
Strumpet - a lady of the night
Scalawag - a worthless person
Huzzy - proud and apt to use the words on this list
Swow - cuss
References:
You never know when you need something like this. Thank you from this historical fiction author!
ReplyDeleteCAVEAT LECTOR
ReplyDeleteFor the benefit of any historical fiction authors looking for Regency slang and swearwords, I think I should mention that a lot of these are not swearwords, or even slang, and/or do not mean what is written here. To take a few....
BALLY has nothing to do with ballocks/bollocks; it's a Bowdlerisation of 'bloody', as in 'the bloody thing hit me!' see OED: https://www.lexico.com/definition/bally
DEUCED just means 'very', albeit with a negative connotation. https://www.lexico.com/definition/deuced
BLIMEY is a contraction of 'blind [or blame] me', and is an expression of surprise, excitement or alarm. It is not equivalent to 'oh shit', which is almost always negative. It also dates from after the Regency era. https://www.lexico.com/definition/blimey
BERK doesn't actually mean 'cunt' although it is rhyming slang for it - it means idiot. A berk is just a stupid person - a cunt is BAD. https://www.lexico.com/definition/blimey
I'm not going to go through them all, but some others to note are:
ADVENTURESS is not a swearword, and has nothing to do with prostitution. It simply means a female adventurer. https://www.lexico.com/definition/adventuress
COCKCHAFER is not the same as COCKSUCKER. A cockchafer is a sort of beetle. https://www.lexico.com/definition/cockchafer
DAFTED is not a word, and has never been. Daft, on the other hand, means foolish. https://www.lexico.com/definition/daft
SODOMITE is not a swearword, and it doesn't technically mean homosexual either. It just means someone who engages in buggery.
CONTEMPTIBLE is not a swearword either, although it does mean 'should be looked down upon'.
(I've got tired of citing the OED - you can just take it as read from now on...)
HORNEY is not a word. 'Horny', on the other hand, is a colloquialism (not a swearword) meaning 'randy', i.e. wanting sex.
JESSE has nothing to do with hell, and is not a swearword. It's the name of some bloke in the Old Testament.
WHOREMONGER is not a swearword; it does mean someone who consorts with whores, but it's a colloquialism. Different thing entirely.
PUSS does not mean 'vagina' - the word is 'pussy', and again it's a colloquialism rather than a swearword. On the other hand, to call somebody a 'pussy' is to accuse them of cowardice, which again is not a swearword but it IS an insult.
URCHIN does not mean 'disgusting', and is not a swearword. It is a perfectly respectable noun meaning 'small unkempt child'.
And finally, STRUMPET can mean 'female prostitute', but its primary meaning is 'promiscuous woman', which is not the same thing at all.
Verdict: a good effort, but needs work! :)
Yes! Also the term "Redneck" is believed to have first appeared in the US in 1830 - ten years after the end of the regency, and not in Britain or even under the British Crown. Plus I'm fairly sure it's slang not a curse, but I could be wrong there.
Delete