Faggot

Faggot derives through the Old French fagot from the Latin facus ("bundle") (see also fasces), coming into Middle English on or around the 13th century as a reference to a bundle of sticks or branches meant for firewood. It has also been used on occasion to refer to wood for funeral pyres or a burning at the stake.

Related Topics:
Old French - Latin - Fasces - Middle English - 13th century - Pyre - Burning at the stake

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:What fool hath added water to the sea,

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:Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?

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:—William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act II, scene III

Related Topics:
William Shakespeare - Titus Andronicus

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The word has other meanings in modern English:

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• A faggot in metallurgy refers to a bundle of iron pieces destined to be worked into bars by hammering or rolling at a high enough temperature to fuse them together.
• A faggot in Newfoundland is a pile of half-dried codfish.
• A faggot in the United Kingdom is a dish of chopped meat and herbs rolled into a ball and fried.
• Faggot is a pejorative slang term used to refer to a gay man.
• Faggots is a novel by Larry Kramer
• A faggot is an archaic unit of measurement.
• "Fagot" was the NATO reporting name for the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 fighter.
• "Fagotto" is the Italian word for bassoon, named so because early versions of the instrument looked like a bundle of sticks.
 
Faggot: See also ►