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Fag vs Poofter - What's the difference?

fag | poofter |

As nouns the difference between fag and poofter

is that fag is in textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric while poofter is a male homosexual, especially an effeminate one; a pansy.

As a verb fag

is to make exhausted, tired out.

fag

English

Etymology 1

Probably from

Noun

(en noun)
  • (US, technical) In textile inspections, a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric.
  • (UK, Ireland, Australia, colloquial, dated in US and Canada) A cigarette.
  • * 1968 January 25, The Bulletin, Oregon ,
  • He?d Phase Out Fag Industry
    Los Angeles (UPI) - A UCLA professor has called for the phasing out of the cigarette industry by converting tobacco acres to other crops.
  • * 2001 , (2001), 15,
  • All of them, like my mother, were heavy smokers, and after warming themselves by the fire, they would sit on the sofa and smoke, lobbing their web fag ends into the fire.
  • * 2011 , Bill Marsh, Great Australian Shearing Stories , unnumbered page,
  • So I started off by asking the shearers if they minded if I took a belly off while they were having a fag'. Then after a while they were asking me. They?d say, ‘Do yer wanta take over fer a bit while I have a '''fag'''?’ And then I got better and I?d finish the sheep and they?d say ‘Christ, I haven?t finished me bloody ' fag yet, yer may as well shear anotherie.’
  • (UK, obsolete, colloquial) The worst part or end of a thing.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1788 , editor=William Perry , title=The Royal standard English dictionary? citation , passage=Fag , s. the worst part or end of anything.}}
    Synonyms
    * (cigarette) ciggy (Australia), smoke, (Cockney rhyming slang) oily rag

    Etymology 2

    Probably alteration of

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (British, colloquial) A chore; an arduous and tiresome task.
  • * 1818 , '', 1992, ''Complete Works of Jane Austen , unnumbered page,
  • We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go—eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag —I come back tired to death.
  • (British, archaic, colloquial) In many British boarding schools, a younger student acting as a servant for senior students.
  • * 1791 , Simon Sapling (pseudonym), Richard Cumberland, The Observer: A Collection of Moral, Literary and Familiar Essays , Volume 4, page 67,
  • I had the character at ?chool of being the very be?t fag that ever came into it.

    Verb

  • (transitive, colloquial, used mainly in passive form) To make exhausted, tired out.
  • (colloquial) To droop; to tire.
  • * G. Mackenzie, Lives'', quoted in 1829 , "Fag", entry in ''The London Encyclopaedia: Or, Universal Dictionary , Volume 9, page 12,
  • Creighton with-held his force 'till the Italian began to fag , and then brought him to the ground.
  • (British, archaic, colloquial) For a younger student to act as a servant for senior students in many British boarding schools.
  • Etymology 3

    From (faggot).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (vulgar, offensive) A homosexual person.
  • * 1921 John Lind, The Female Impersonators ( Historical Documentation of American Slang v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan E. Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994) page 716.
  • Androgynes known as “fairies,” “fags,” or “brownies.”
  • * {{quote-journal
  • , year=1926 , author=American Neurological Association , coauthors=New York Neurological Association et al , journal=Journal of nervous and mental disease , volume=94 , page=467 citation , passage=In schizophrenics, however, the homosexual outlet is sooner or later ... ideas that strangers call them "cs," "fairy," "woman," "fag ," " fruit," etc.). ... }}
  • * 2006 , Lynn Mickelsen, Confusion Turned to Chaos
  • A couple of days later, Trisha tells Madelyn there is a rumor going around that she's a fag .
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=2008 , author=Paul Ryan Brewer , title=Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights , page=60 citation , isbn=0742562115, 9780742562110 , passage=... what appeared to be overt appeals to anti-gay sentiment. When House Majority Whip Dick Armey referred to fellow Congressman Barney Frank as "Barney Fag " in 1995, he suffered a barage of negative publicity that prompted him to explain his choice of words as a slip of the tongue.}}
  • # (colloquial, disparaging) In particular, a conspicuously non-straight-acting homosexual male.
  • (US, vulgar, offensive) An annoying person.
  • Why did you do that, you fag ?
    Usage notes
    In North America, fag is often considered highly offensive, although some gay people have tried to reclaim it. (Compare faggot.) The humorousness of derived terms fag hag'' and ''fag stag is sometimes considered to lessen their offensiveness.
    Derived terms
    * fag hag * fag stag
    Synonyms
    * (male homosexual) faggot, fairy, homo, queer * (male homosexual friend) bro, pal * (annoying person) ass, asshole, dick, jerk, prick, putz, schmuck * (conspicuous homosexual) ** (effeminate or prissy) flamer, queen

    poofter

    English

    Alternative forms

    * poofta * pooftah

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, pejorative, slang) A male homosexual, especially an effeminate one; a pansy.
  • * 1943 , John Bostock and Evan Jones, The nervous soldier: a handbook for the prevention, detection and treatment of nervous invalidity in war , page 11,
  • Hallucinations, again, are the expression of repressed systems of ideas and desires; for example a man who has strong repressed homo-sexual tendencies may hear voices calling him a poofter .
  • * 1964 , Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice , page 36,
  • "You pommy poofter'. You give me any more of that liberal crap and I'll have your balls for a bow tie." Bond said mildly, "What's a ' poofter ?" "What you'd call a pansy. No," Dikko Henderson got to his feet and fired a string of what sounded like lucid Japanese at the man behind the bar,.
  • * 2007 , John Mendoza, Mad Blue Smoke , Pasini Press, Melbourne, Australia, page 113,
  • I just ignored them because I didn't think what I did made me a poofter'. Me and Dwayne were best friends, and it was only because there were no girls around, and I liked it. My father taught me that homosexuality was unnatural, and that ' poofters were men who couldn't form relationships with women because they were horrifying, repulsive queers.

    Usage notes

    Poofter'' is nowadays one of the most highly pejorative words in Australian English, perhaps reflected in or by association with its use in the compound ''poofter-bashing , which arose during the 1960s and 1970s in the context of a sharp increase in organised homophobic hate crimes across Australia and particularly in the Sydney district of King's Cross, a major centre of Sydney's gay social life. Beyond its use as a homophobic slur, it is also often aimed at males who do not conform to stereotypical ideals of masculinity in other ways, particularly in the fields of art or academia.

    Anagrams

    *

    References

    Francoeur, R. T., and Noonan, R. J. (eds.) The Continuum Complete International Encyclopedia of Sexuality, p.33. Continuum: New York.