Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a general term of abuse, usu. of women or children.

[1591		T. Lodge Catharos 4b: A filbert is better than a faggot, except it be an Athenian she handfull] .
1722		N. Ward Parish Gutt’lers in Misc. IV 48: One Dol Gulpin, big with Child, a Faggot-Drab.
1795		R. Newton Samples of Sweethearts and Wives! [cartoon caption] Damn your blood, you old Faggot, where are you coming to?
1820		‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ in Fancy 16: I have got a faggot here, / Aye, and quite a bad one; Were I married. p’rhaps my dear / Might think that he too had one.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 30: So, Master Simple, old Trotter and his faggot of a wife have got hold of you – have they?
1838		W. Holloway Dict. of Provincialisms 10/1: Fagot, An opprobrius name applied to a woman, as ‘get out you fagot’.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 248: ‘Take that, you owld faggot!’ cried Matty, as she shook Mrs. Rooney’s tributary claret from the knuckles.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 8 Apr. 2/6: Mrs Greenwood called me a faggot, I called her another.
1853		C.R. Read What I Heard, Saw, and Did 92: The old man [...] crying out every now and then, ‘give the old faggot plenty, for she might not have the chance again’.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 23 Aug. n.p.: How is the Vine street faggot?
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1862		Sth Aus. Advertiser 19 Feb. 3/7: The defendant [...] called her a drunken faggot and used other insulting language.
1876		G. Lander Little Gerty I i: You nasty little faggot!
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 18 May 19/1: ‘Yes, my mother-in-law, the thirsty old faggot’.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1896		G.F. Northall Warwickshire Word-Book 74: Faggot. A degrading and contemptuous epithet applied to a female.
1899		Queenslander (Brisbane) 25 Mar. 540/1: While trying an old woman for stealing faggots [the judge] unconsciously ejaculated, ‘Why, one faggot is as like another faggot as one egg is like another egg’.
1901		Truth (Brisbane) 24 Mar. 2/3: When blackguard faggots strut around / And flash there Wage of Sin.
1908		L. Doyle Ballygullion 110: ‘Ye ould faggot, ye,’ sez he.
1918		K.F. Purdon Dinny on the Doorstep 25: You’ll not have any truck wid that ould faggot of a wan.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 690: Pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs Riordan.
1923		P. MacGill Moleskin Joe 34: The poor nuns [...] Raped! Ah, the dirty faggot, that Kaiser!
1923		Adocate (Burnie, Tas.) 21 June 5/5: Ormond [...] called her ‘A dirty Jewess’ and ‘A dirty faggot’ .
1929		B. Duffy Rocky Road 216: The ould faggot that opened the door said I was mistaken.
a.1954		‘Mexicana Rose’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 42: ‘Quiet,’ said Smitty, ‘or I’ll draw you on a bead.’ / ‘Faggot,’ said Rose, ‘your heart’s a mustard seed.’.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 68: One or two of the old faggots might try a bit of cheek on you.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 12: ‘The oul faggots!’ his mother would mutter darkly under her breath.
1996		D. Healy Bend for Home 66: Mrs Smith wants a cherry cake at five, my mother would say. Does she, the faggot.

2. a prostitute.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 15 Oct. n.p.: the whip wants to know Who is that short faggot that cuts such a swell in the street and is so very partial to Mr B.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 17 July 3/5: Twig her red ribbons! there goes a flaming faggot!
1903		Truth (Brisbane) 11 Jan. 6/7: The grocer had called her a DIRTY, LOW, STREET FAGGOT.

3. (US, also faggart) a homosexual man; in general use the term covers any gay man, in gay use the implication is of overt effeminacy.

1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 30: drag [...] Amongst female impersonators on the stage and men of dual sex instincts ‘drag’ denotes female attire donned by a male. Example: ‘All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight’.
1919		Transcript Foster Inq. in L.R. Murphy Perverts by Official Order (1989) 54: He had attended a party where ‘indiscreet things’ took place; ‘it was,’ he explained ‘what they might call a faggot party’.
1922		Broadway Brevities Aug. 30: If that faggot starts anything with me I’ll lay him out!
1926		Hemingway Sun Also Rises 62: You’re a hell of a good guy, and I’m fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn’t tell you that in New York. It’d mean I was a faggot.
1934		H. Sebastian ‘Negro Sl. in Lincoln University’ in AS IX:4 288: faggart (or faggot, fagot). A sexual pervert.
1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 950: He wiggled his hips like a woman when he talked. The first thing Margo thought was how on earth she could ever have liked that fagot.
1941		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 67: The late Brigham Young was no neuter— / No faggot, no fairy, no fruiter.
1957		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 7 Sept. 11: Swaggering hoodlums, the pimps and doorway girls, the lesbians and the switching faggots.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 192: Esmeralda Drake the third — she was that nelly. Oh, babe, she was such a faggot!
1970		E. Tidyman Shaft 32: The silly faggot jumped about three inches out of his bright blue raglan sweater.
1984		C. White Life and Times of Little Richard 20: The kids would called me faggot, sissy, freak, punk.
1989		Kirk & Madsen After The Ball 103: In small-town Lewiston, Maine, in 1985, a gay man was set upon in his own home by a rabid gang of youths screaming ‘Faggot! Faggot!’.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] ‘Where’s that little faggot? [...] Tell that little queer fucker I’m gonna kill him’.
1998		K. Anderson Night Dogs 95: ‘Are you a cornholer, Private [...] A faggot? A homosexual?’.
1999		Indep. Mag. 26 June 27: I saw a graffito which suggested putting all the faggots on an island.
1999		J. Poller Reach 96: You got that, you fucking cocksucking nancy-boy faggot!
2008		Simon & Burns ‘Get Some’ Generation Kill ep. 1 [TV script] You some kinda goddam hippie faggot?
2009		Intelligent Life Spring 96/1: He [...] would solve the faggot problem by urging gay men not to act like fags.
2010		(ref. to 1963) K. Richards Life 151: In America then, if you had long hair, you were a faggot as well as a freak.
2010		K. Barry ‘Fjord of Killary’ in New Yorker 24 Jan. 🌐 ‘We’re after a meal at the place run by the Dutch faggots’.
2014		me-stepmums-too-fuckin-hot-mate at www.fakku.net 🌐 She’s so fuckin’ hot, any cunt who’s not a complete faggot would wanna fuck her.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 10: No way man, Cheker protests,— I ain’t no goddam faggot.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘[Y]ou’re just a little smart-assed faggot, aren’t you?’.
2019		Guardian 23 Sept. 11/4: Mocking straights, ‘faggots’ and Lesbians, midgets, ‘fat girls’ [...] whichever minority she’s just dissed.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 55: ‘Pommies.’ Devon didn’t know what that meant but he assumed faggot.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 265: ‘Fucking faggot, homo, this, that’.

4. (S. Afr./US) a lesbian.

c.1953		Hughes Lodge 121: One, a faggot, a chick dressed like a man [HDAS].
2011		IOL News (Western Cape) 19 Mar. 🌐 I am heterosexual! [...] Let’s say that I lied and that I told you that I’m a lesbian, a ‘faggot’, a ‘moffie’ [...].
2016		Young M.A. ‘Eat’ 🎵 Damn, I’m must really put fear in these niggas / Because they call me a dyke, a faggot, a gay bitch.

5. (US) a general term of abuse, irrespective of sex, although implication is of weakness.

a.1953		‘Death Row’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 117: He was the dude who wasn’t afraid to die, / But we all heard that big faggot cry.
1962		(con. 1953–7) L. Yablonsky Violent Gang (1967) 82: You guys are nothing but a bunch of mother-fuckin’ faggots.
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 123: But now I’m gon call you a fartn shiteater faggot whore kike apeshit thievin Jew.
1985		Tracks (Aus.) May 3: If you faggots can’t stand sharing breaking sections with the opposite sex, then we suggest you dig the nose of your board in the sand and sit on the tail until your feet touch the ground [Moore 1993].
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 126: A brawny black sergeant stood over him, calling him a faggot, a pussy, a dickless wonder.
2000		Hip-Hop Connection Jan./Feb. 96: You ain’t shit, faggot.
2000		(con. 1974) Z. Smith White Teeth 11: ‘You play like a faggot,’ said Samad, laying down the winning queens.
2004		A. Kleinzahler Cutty, One Rock (2005) 19: Other popular terms of abuse were ‘faggot’ and ‘douche’.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] Nowadays, though, every other beatnik faggot was a VP for some big company that made fiber-optic Internet microchips or some shit.

6. (US gay, also faggotina) a heterosexual woman who associates with male homosexual men.

1976

Warren ‘Women Among Men’ in Levine Gay Men (1979) 229: Fag hag (in different regions the term may be fruit fly or faggotina).

7. (US teen/campus) an unattractive young woman.

1970

Current Sl. IV:2.