English

Alternative forms

• fagot

Noun

faggot ‎(plural faggots)

1. (rare, dated in US) A burning or smouldering piece of firewood.
2. (chiefly Britain, collective) A bundle of sticks tied together. (Some sources specify that a faggot is tied with two bands or withes, whereas a bavin is tied with just one.)
   • 1853, Sir Francis Bond Head, A faggot of French sticks: or, Paris in 1851, page 2:

     In the depth of, winter, however, a faggot of real French Sticks — although of little intrinsic value — may possibly enliven for a few moments an English Fireside.

3. (obsolete) Burdensome baggage.
4. (Britain, Ireland, colloquial, pejorative, obsolete) A shrewish woman.
   • 1591, Thomas Lodge, Catharos Diogenes in his Singularity (Oxford English Dictionary, faggot, fagot, n., 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 12 Jan 2009)

     A filbert is better than a faggot, except it be an Athenian she handfull.

   • 1796, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Autobiography:

     she wants me to go to bed to her, and I won't, ... for she is as crooked as a ram's horn ... and as ugly as sin besides ; rot her, the dirty little faggot, she torments me.

   • 1834, William Carleton, The Midnight Mass:

     The woman, in accordance with the custom of the country, raised the Irish cry, in a loud melancholy wail ...

     Darby, who prided himself on maintaining silence, could not preserve the consistency of his character upon this occasion ... "Your sowl to the divil, you faggot!" he exclaimed, "what do you mane? The divil whip the tongue out o' you! ..."

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses (chapter 18):

     he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit […]

   • 1925, D. H. Lawrence, Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays: .. Love Was Once a Little Boy

     To me she is fractious, tiresome, and a faggot. Yet the subtle desirableness is in her, for me. As it is in the brown hen, or even a sow.

   • 1973, Hugh Leonard, Da:

     MOTHER: To see who?

     DA: You faggot, you; don't let on you don't know.

5. (offensive, vulgar, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) A homosexual man, especially an effeminate one.
   • 1914, Louis E. Jackson and C.R. Hellyer, Vocabulary of Criminal Slang (Portland, OR: Modern Printing Co., 1914) page 30:

     Drag, Example: “All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.

   • 2004, Dennis Cooper, The ****, page 228:

     We're a hot looking crew that's your average faggot's wet dream, so we pull some pretty max tricks.

   • 2009, David L. Gold, Studies in Etymology and Etiology, page 781:

     Fleissner's explanation presumably implies that Dickens meant Fag as an allusion to the derogatory English words fag 'homosexual', and faggot 'homosexual'

   • 2012, Ernesto Martínez, On Making Sense: Queer Race Narratives of Intelligibility

     Of course I'm a faggot, darling. I'm a flaming faggot, darling. I am fanning the flames of my faggotry.

6. (offensive, vulgar) An annoying or inconsiderate person.
7. (chiefly Britain) A meatball made from pork, see w:Faggot (food)
   • 2008, Julie Hodgson, In My Father's Pockets (page 16)

     Today would be faggots in gravy and chocolate pudding with a white sauce. I didn't like faggots but picked at them and rolled the peas around my plate.

8. (Britain, historical) A faggot voter.

Coordinate terms

• dyke, scissor sister

Synonyms

• (male homosexual): fag, fairy, poof, queer
• See also Wikisaurus:male homosexual

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

faggot ‎(third-person singular simple present faggots, present participle faggoting, simple past and past participle faggoted)

1. Alternative form of fagot