December 15, 1997

slut

I just finished reading your explanations of the origins of the words "hooker" and "bimbo." Can you tell us what the origin of the word "slut" is?

No, not exactly.

Most dictionaries say that slut is from Middle English slutte, which is not too helpful, but we can start there. The original sense of this word, which is first found about 1400, is 'a dirty, slovenly woman', and was used with no suggestion of sexual promiscuity. An example from that masterpiece of seventeenth-century prose, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy: "Women are all day a-dressing, to pleasure other men abroad, and go like sluts at home."

This sense is still current, more common in Britain than the U.S., but it is now usually considered to be a derivative of the next sense, 'a sexually immoral woman', which also appeared in the fifteenth century. An example from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera: "Dolly Trull! kiss me, you Slut; are you as amorous as ever, Hussy? You are always so taken up with stealing Hearts"; from Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey: "Thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut"; from James Joyce's Ulysses: "...like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him..."

The ultimate origin of the word is unknown. It is probably cognate with similar words in Dutch, dialectal German, and dialectal Swedish meaning 'dirty woman; slut'. Some scholars connect it to forms in various Germanic languages meaning 'slush' or 'mud; a mud puddle'. There are examples of a word slut in place-names and personal names from the thirteenth century in English, but it's not possible to tell exactly what it means and how (and whether) it's related to our slut.