# Why Dick for penis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 21, 2001, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092 "2001-01-21T03:44:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PTPS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e56c9b/32.png) [@PTPS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PTPS)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/1 "2001-01-21T03:44:05Z")
I happen to think Dick is a very respectable name. My grandfather’s name is Dick. How was this name corrupted, i.e. why is it used to refer to the penis, and why as a derogatory term? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/2 "2001-01-21T04:19:11Z")
This was answered by a doper far more erudite than myself in an earlier thread - it’s from old British army slang. BTW - my dad’s name is Dick, too, and his generation was on the cusp of the sexual revolution - so he was among the last men to enjoy the name as an old-fashoined moniker, like Tad for Theodore, and among the first enjoy in it’s phallic connotation. ---
**Author:** ![DaveRaver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daveraver/32/1078_2.png) [@DaveRaver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveRaver)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/3 "2001-01-21T04:28:56Z")
“Willy” is also a British slang for penis. The movie title “Free Willy” must have gotten a few giggles there! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/4 "2001-01-21T04:33:31Z")
What I find odd, is that when I read about a Dick in a novel, I don’t get a super virile image like I do from reading about Rod, Lance, or especially Derrik. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/5 "2001-01-21T04:50:26Z")
Where to begin? We did it before [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=16130) But,as to your questions, we may never know “How was this name corrupted, i.e. why is it used to refer to the penis, and why as a derogatory term?” These are the hard to answer parts. To summerize; Dick as a shortened name for Richard comes about in print in English around 1553, and is used afterwards to mean\* a fellow, esp. if foolish or peculiar\*. From my _Lighter, American Slang_ The earliest we can find _Dick_ meaning _penis_ in print in US is 1888, one cite being military and the other student(the two greatest sources of slang!). Again, from Lighter. If anyone can figure out the answers to the above questions, your next task will be to explain how a _dick_ comes to mean a _detective_ around the turn of the century. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/6 "2001-01-21T06:18:15Z")
DICK + BUSH = YOU’RE SCREWED ---
**Author:** ![kbutcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@kbutcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kbutcher)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/7 "2001-01-21T07:08:16Z")
Kind of OT but I believe they changed the name of the movie “Free Willy” in england for just that reason. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/8 "2001-01-21T08:28:23Z")
All the Dicks, Rogers, Orels, Willys, and Peters have formed a support group called PROWD. ---
**Author:** ![Adolph\_Peewee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Adolph\_Peewee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adolph_Peewee)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/9 "2001-01-21T12:11:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DaveRaver \* > \*\*“Willy” is also a British slang for penis. The movie title “Free Willy” must have gotten a few giggles there! \*\* hehe…and here I was thinking that movie was a documentary on vasectomies! :wally ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/10 "2001-01-21T16:36:39Z")
A dictionary, a very handy tool: dick "dik\ noun [Dick, nickname for Richard] (1553) 1 chiefly Brit : fellow, chap 2 : penis — usu. considered vulgar 3 [by shortening & alter.] : detective ©1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved. See, short for ‘chap’ ---
**Author:** ![IBBen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@IBBen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IBBen)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/11 "2001-01-21T17:06:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kbutcher \* > \*\*Kind of OT but I believe they changed the name of the movie “Free Willy” in england for just that reason. \*\* What did they call in England? Should we burn all copies of Moby Dick while we’re at it? Or perhaps a little creative graffiti with a felt pen could create a new title, “Moby Bick” Imagine the poor sod born with this name: [http://people.yahoo.com/py/psPhoneSearch.py?FirstName=richard&LastName=gay&City=&State=](http://people.yahoo.com/py/psPhoneSearch.py?FirstName=richard&LastName=gay&City=&State=) Corrupted name indeed. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/12 "2001-01-21T19:28:34Z")
I always assumed that the idea for dick = penis came from the fact that Dick must have beeen a pretty common name, i.e. “Every Dick and Jane”, and people just started associating the name with “male” and hence “penis”. ---
**Author:** ![melchizedek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@melchizedek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melchizedek)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/13 "2001-01-21T19:49:47Z")
No, they didn’t change the name from “Free Willy”, that’s what we called it here in sunny England. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dick-for-penis/51092/14 "2001-01-21T21:12:00Z")
From the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary: “b. The penis Coarse Slang 1891 in ‘Farmer’ Slang” Relatively recent apparently as this is the earliest citation. However the OED itself says that the term dick applies to the flower the periwinkle, and winkle is slang for the penis. However I cannot find a citation for winkle as a penis before 1951. Who knows. Anyone know more. I had believed that Willy as a slang word for penis dated from the first world war. Kitty Kelly in The Royals relates it to a rude poke at Kaiser Wilhelm, however, checking up for this post I now find that the OED has an eighteeenth century citation. Free Willy did cause some merriment here in England. I remember that Peter is also slang for the penis in the USA as I was at school with a person called Peter Holder and this caused much merriment.