Faggot

Faggot, often shortened to fag, is a slur in the English language used to refer to gay men. The slur is also sometimes indiscriminately used against other members of the LGBTQ community, and has also seen extended use in American youth culture beginning around the turn of the 21st century as a broader reaching insult more related to masculinity and group power structure. In a case of linguistic reclamation, many LGBTQ people have reclaimed it as a neutral or positive term for describing themselves, as well as reinforcing in-group solidarity.

By extension, faggotry (or rarely, faggotism or faggotness) are pejoratively used to refer to homosexuality.

Etymology

The first recorded use of faggot as a pejorative term against gay men was in the 1914 A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang, while the shortened form fag first appeared in 1923 in The Hobo by Nels Anderson.

Its association with homosexuality has uncertain origins, probably derives from linguistic patterns in which terms related to the feminine/unmasculine, such as fruit, fairy, and molly, are used to demean homosexual or effeminate men. The application of the term to people is possibly a shortening of the term "faggot-gatherer", recorded at least since the 19th century, when was applied especially for children and women, the latter being often older widows, who made a meager living by gathering and selling firewood. It may also derive from the sense of "something awkward to be carried" (compare the use of the word baggage as a pejorative for "worthless woman" or for old people in general).

An alternative possibility is that the word is connected with the practice of fagging in British public schools, in which younger boys performed (potentially sexual) duties for older boys, although the word faggot was never used in this context, only fag. There is a reference to the word faggot being used in 17th-century Britain to refer to a "man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster", but there is no known connection with the word's modern usage.