what does "pussy" mean in the expression, "Hey man, you're a pussy"

Factual Questions
1

I was thinking about this the other day, and it seems to me that in the expression, “don’t be a pussy,” one could either be implying that the intended target of said barb is behaving like a pussy cat, i.e. a scaredy cat or in a genteel manner, like a small cat, or that they are behaving like a woman. I tend to think it is the former, and therefore not necessarily a horrible thing to say. However, if it is the latter, then not only is the comment making some unkind generalizations about all of womanhood, but it is replacing the whole with the part, further demoralizing/objectifying(?) women.

What sez you, Cat and o.k., or woman and clearly inappropriate?

2

Cunt. Synecdoche for woman. Implies that object of insult is unmanly. Come on, you knew that. And yes, of course, it’s disrespectful of women.

3

I’ve always understood it to mean don’t be a girl, with the implication that girls are weak, timid, etc. As to whether or not that is apprpopriate, well discussing that would be inapprpopriate for this forum, which deals with factual answers to questions. :slight_smile:

4

You’ve never had a kitten, have you?

5

It’s the latter.

Stop pussyfooting around.

6

In case you need another response to convince you, calling someone a pussy is indeed saying they’re acting like a woman. Not good.

7

My dictionary of American Slang says that pussy meant a “harmless person, either gentle or timid or both; =PUSSYCAT” by 1859. It also says that it was slang for the vagina, or a woman as a sex object, by 1879.

8

I’ve always wondered how it made the leap from cat to woman. Did lonely farmers with just their pets around started branding everything they could have sex with as a “pussy”?

9

It’s another of those pejorative words that has undergone a change in meaning and useage over the years. In the language of the last 40 or more years it certainly implies that the target is woman-like, no question.

As others have cited, it almost certainly started out life as likening a woman to a pussycat in the 19th century or earlier. The phrase pussyfooting around, which appears around 1900, implied being timid, afraid, like a cat. No sense of woman there.

But pussy was in use in theater circles by the late 1940’s to mean a homosexual male. Interesting how these terms morph from women to homosexual males, much like faggot.

10

My 1869 Dr. Oglivie’s gives “pussy” as exclusively “diminuitive of ‘puss’, (irish & gaelic) - cat”.

I have a mid-19th century Webster’s that lists a sense of “a modest or retiring young woman.”

Earlier dictionaries also give an adjectival sense of “Properly, inflated, swelled; hence, fat, short and thick; and as persons of this make labor in respiration, the word is used for short breathed.” (Webster’s 1826 at CTI) This has been altered into “pursy.”

Gets into some strange loops there, because while being “pussy” in this sense implies a lack of vigor might be connected to the modern perjorative use of the word (though not likely), “pursy” has an equally tenuous connection to women’s soft bits. (“Purse” has been a relatively common vulgur term for ‘vagina,’ especially in the context of prosititution, for a long, long time.)

Everything is probably too tangled up to get a definitive answer as to the exact connection (if any) that this use of “pussy” has to the slang for “vagina,” but I think that those who are saying that it’s obviously misogynist might be being a bit too hasty. I think that that may be more connotation than denotation.

Remember that “pusillanimous” had been in use for ages, with a closely connected meaning, for ages before “pussy” was used to refer to either naughty bits or milquetoasts.

Personally, I think that “being a pussy” can be more closely connected to “pusillanimous” than to the vulgar sense of “pussy,” since there’s less abstraction involved. It doesn’t seem too unreasonable to me to conjecture that “pusillanimous” might be shortened and altered into “pussy.” “You pusillaminun-- pusilanim ass-- You pusil-- You damned pussy!” :wink:

Samclem, my 1940 Webster’s has a strangely specific definition of “pussyfoot” and “pussyfooter” – “advocate Prohibitionism” and “an advocate of Prohibition,” respectively. :smiley:

11

Calling someone a pussycat wasn’t an insult, to my knowledge. It was an affectionate description of someone harmless and sweet.

12

Remember the Tom Jones pop tune, What’s New, Pussycat? The reference there was obviously to a female in an affectionate sense.

13

You are what you eat. I eat pussy, so I don’t take it as an insult. :smiley:

14

Thank you for the many responses. I would love to hear more. I especially appreciate those that researched and used actual data to come to an answer rather than jumping to the quickest and easiest conclusion without regard to the actual accuracy of their answers. Only by asking questions can the truth be revealed.

I am well aware that many regard the word as most distasteful; I was inquiring whether or not the disdain for the term was founded in etymology or simply a folk misunderstanding of the term. Along these same lines is the word niggardly. Does this word stem from the nasty “N” word, or do those that pause and in disbelief at the words usage suffer from a folk etymological misunderstanding of the term?

15

Apples and oranges.

Your earlier question[pussy] has little to do with a misunderstanding of the term.

But niggardly doesn’t come from the same origin as nigger. But folk misunderstanding DOES come into play there.

16

But my earlier question does have something to do with a misunderstanding of the term and it is not apples and oranges if:

The reason people object to the use of the word pussy in regards to the OP is because it is the same as a “bad” word and/or they believe it to be a misogynous expression rather than a comparing of one to a cat or, as proposed by Larry Mudd, a derivative of pusillanimous.

This is directly similar to:

People often balk at the use of the word niggardly because it “sounds” like a “bad” word and/or they believe it to be a racist expression suggesting that all people of African decent are miserly. SDSTAFF “Hispanic-and-span” Ian explains this in the following column, http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mniggard.html

These two examples are very similar, maybe Navels and Valencia, but not “apples and oranges”.

To quote SDSTAFF “Hispanic-and-span” Ian from that same article,

17

I don’t think that’s entirely so. Certainly the word carries a strong connotation that can lead people to associate it with “female,” and should probably (as a matter of style) be avoided unless the speaker is comfortable with that, but there is no evidence to suggest that the “coward” sense of “pussy” is derived from the “female genitals” sense of pussy.

We’re getting into the territory of begging-the-question, here. Well, maybe not quite, but look at the steps that are necessary to claim that intimating that someone is weak by calling them a “pussy” is misogynist:

“Bob is a pussy because he won’t go bungee-jumping with all the other guys on the bowling team.”

This is misogynist because:[ul][li]“Pussy” is a slang term meaning “vagina.”[]Only women have vaginas.[]Weakness or cowardice is a property that is sometimes assigned to women.[*]By calling someone a “pussy,” something that only women have, you are implying that the person is like a woman in their cowardice, and by extension assigning that property to all women.[/ul][/li]
It’s a bit tortured, given that a literal pussy is a weak and timid creature. “You are a pussy,” therefore, is a natural thing to say to someone who is perceived as weak and timid – without any reference to genitals. “You are a pussy,” in order to be understood as misogynist, has to be abstracted ridiculously: “‘You are X,’ X being in one sense a property that Y possesses, is meant to mean ‘You are like Y,’ and implies that all Y possess property Z.” Hogwash.

This is very much the same sort of thing that’s going on with “niggardly” – the only difference is that the word isn’t a direct homophone.

If the word “pussy” came into general use in the sense of “timid person” by analogy with kittens, or by corruption of “pusillanimous,” (both of which seem more direct and probable than anything relating to genitals,) then it’s exactly the same sort of misunderstanding. “That’s a slur against this entire class of people!” when the origin has absolutely nothing to do with said class.

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Eva’s father’s pet name for her was “pussy.” Do we assume that his nickname is derived from the germanic word meaning “vagina,” and that he’s a dirty old man, or do we consider that he’s using the gaelic-derived homophone, meaning kitty-cat? He must be talking about genitals, right? Eva has a vagina, but she’s not feline in any way. Obvious!

Why is an equally weak (or perhaps weaker) argument that the derogative “pussy” is derived from the germanic “puss” as opposed to the gaelic “puss” accepted by some as obvious?

You might just as well argue that the medical sense of “pussy” is misogynist, since “pussy” is a slang term for women’s genitals and the word equates all forms of seeping infection with gynecological problems. Better not say that your head-wound is “pussy,” because women have vaginas which are sometimes called “pussies” and which sometimes become infected. Obviously, calling a stinky, oozing wound “pussy” implies that all women have stinking, oozing wounds between their legs.

Except that this sense of “pussy” has nothing to do with that sense of “pussy,” and neither have anything to do with the other sense of “pussy.”

I bought some fish sticks the other day, and do you know that those Francophones call 'em “poisson?” Can you believe the nerve of them? What an insult to women! Obviously, they’re implying that women have a fishy smell, and of course that’s not true at all.

Wait a minute, I’m being silly, aren’t I? Sorry, it’s infectious.

18

Just an attempt to “legitimately” talk about pussy. :eek: Seems to me kind of passive aggressive, or perhaps just yellow-bellied and lily-livered.

19

Can we move this to the pit?

20

NO, but feel free to start a pit thread if you wish.