• InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      12·
      2 days ago

      bung-hole

      also bunghole, “hole in a cask through which is it filled, closed by a stopper,” 1570s, from bung (n.) + hole (n.). Sense extended to “anus” by c. 1600.

      “by c. 1600” means the first known written use was in ~1600. I wonder how fast the spoken use took. Months? It would have been the hot meme of the 1570s. I can imagine this convo in a pub.

      “Guys, guys, guys. I was talking to the publican and I learned a new word. Bung means stopper, right? And hole - you know that one. What do you think bunghole means?”

      2nd guy: “Dunno.”

      3rd guy: “Already know that. The stopper for a barrel. So?”

      “How 'bout your anus?”

      • LocalMaxima [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        2 days ago

        butthole (n.) also butt-hole, “anus,” 1950s slang, from butt (n.6) + hole (n.). Earlier it meant “blind hole; cul-de-sac” (early 20c.).

        butthole is surprisingly much later

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          5·
          2 days ago

          1950s slang

          From a dictionary.

          butt 3

          3 <informal> mainly <North America English> The buttocks or anus:

          There are no dates. I googled but I only found this very annoying article where the writer speaks in circles

          The Grammarphobia Blog: Is ‘butt’ short for ‘buttock’?

          The OED’s earliest US example for “butt” used to mean the hindquarters is from John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms (1859), which defines it this way: “The buttocks. The word is used in the West in such phrases as, ‘I fell on my butt,’ ‘He kick’d my butt.’ ”

          Maybe butthole was a slang term in the late 1800s but it was only a spoken form for many decades after that until some intrepid pioneer had the audacity to put it in print.

          • LocalMaxima [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            Yeah I searched to find an example in print. Most results were “but thoſe” mistranscribed. In the early 1900s I found butt hole used as a mining term (digging a butt hole in rock then stuffing it with explosives)