Where Does it Come From?

[shanmonster]

Here is the scenario:

George goes for a walk, determined to ask Alice out to the prom. She's just a few houses away. But then it starts to rain. He turns around and goes home, because she probably didn't want to go out with him, anyway.

George is a pussy.

What is the origin of the term "pussy" in this example? Some people say it comes from pejorative use of vagina slang, but I'm not so sure of that. I think it has more in common with calling someone a "scaredy cat" or "chicken," neither of which has overtly sexual overtones (ok, maybe "chicken" does, but not in this context).

Comments

Re: Pussy

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Well, the bit about there being no cats in England/Scotland/Ireland/whichever until recently is certainly not true. Rabbits (kept as food and fur, not pets, btw) weren't introduced to England until after the Norman conquest. There is no word for "rabbit" in the older Celtic or Germanic languages, whereas we have OE catte, Welsh and Cornish cathe, etc.

That said, "coney" (the older term for "rabbit", which originally meant only the young of the coney) is heavily linked to the word "cunt". Coney was pronounced "cunny" in some parts of the realm. As a term of endearment for a woman, it can be dated to 1528 (a poem by Skelton, in fact: "He calleth me his whytyng, his nobbes and his conny"). The more sexual meaning is only slightly later (for example, the 1622 phrase "No money, no coney").

Whether all of this has to do with a perceived resemblance between women's genitals and rabbits, or just a convenient combination of terms that sound alike is not certain, but it seems more likely to me to be the latter.

Incidentally, "cunt" is found in English from 1230 onwards (interestingly, first recorded in a London street-name, "Gropecuntlane"). It also ties in somehow with the words "cunning" and "quaint", but I'm not enough of a linguist to say exactly how. :)