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ass

noun
/æs/

Etymology

Variant of arse; used chiefly in North America. Ultimately from Middle English ars, ers, from Old English ærs, ears, from Proto-West Germanic *ars, from Proto-Germanic *arsaz (compare Old High German ars (German Arsch), Old Norse ars, Old Frisian ers), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁órsos (compare Ancient Greek ὄρρος (órrhos)). Etymological notes Contrary to the widespread belief of this being a euphemism, it arose as a pronunciation spelling (of the older form arse still used in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) that shows the assimilation of /ɹ/ before coronal consonants (especially /s/), a phenomenon that has been present in nonstandard speech from the Middle English period onwards; this is distinct from the later phenomenon of non-rhoticity as /ɹ/ was lost before it could modify the preceding vowel. Other instances of this phenomenon (some of which retained both spellings with different meanings) include cuss from curse, gash from garsh, bass (“fish”) from barse, bust from burst, passel from parcel; see :Category:English terms with assimilation of historic /ɹ/ for a more extensive list.

  1. inherited from *h₁órsos✻
  2. inherited from *arsaz✻
  3. inherited from *ars✻
  4. inherited from ærs
  5. inherited from ars

Definitions

  1. Any of several species of horse-like animals, especially Equus asinus, the domesticated…

    Any of several species of horse-like animals, especially Equus asinus, the domesticated of which are used as beasts of burden.

    • And Iesse tooke an asse laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by Dauid his sonne vnto Saul.
    • […] suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading an ass laden with wood by the bridle.

  2. A stupid or inconsiderate person.

    • Near-synonyms: fool, idiot, jerk, asswipe; see also Thesaurus:jerk
    • That new kid left the cap off the syrup bottle again! What an ass.
    • He is such an ass for leaving the house door open.

  3. A compositor.

    • Sometimes by way of joke, and sometimes by way of irritation, compositors are called Asses by the pressmen.
  4. ›+ 9 more definitions

    1. The buttocks.

    2. The anus.

      • Train compartment: two sick young junkies on their way to Lexington tear their pants down in convulsions of lust. One of them soaps his cock and works it up the other's ass with a corkscrew motion.
      • That does it! Now listen! Why is it that everything today has involved things either going in or coming out of my ass? I’m sick of it! It’s completely immature!

    3. Sex

      Sex; a person to have sex with; with vulgar emphasis on their corporeality (their body) over their personhood.

      • I'm going to go down to the bar and try to get me some ass.
      • piece of ass
      • Acid, booze, and ass / Needles, guns, and grass

    4. Used in similes to express something bad or unpleasant.

      • I feel like ass today.
      • This room smells like ass.
      • What a load of ass.

    5. A person

      A person; the self; (reflexively) oneself or one's person, chiefly their body.

      • Get your lazy ass out of bed!
      • We risk our asses out there every day.
      • I'ma get medieval on your ass!

    6. Of low quality

      Of low quality; bad.

      • On a recent episode of "The Justin Dunning Podcast," Starkel shared his thoughts on Martell, a former Ohio State quarterback, saying "he's ass my dude" in reference to Starkel.
      • For some reason, the teenager thought it’d be a good idea to criticize Newton and say he's "ass" and that he’s "about to be poor" because he's a free agent.
      • "You're so ass," Murray says to another player.

    7. Synonym of -ass (used to intensify an adjective).

      • That was one big ass fish!
      • That's an expensive ass car!

    8. Initialism of argininosuccinate synthase.

    9. Initialism of antisynthetase syndrome.

The neighborhood

Derived

African wild ass, ass cart, Big Ass Lake, Buridan's ass, make an ass of, Somali wild ass, the law is an ass, wild ass, yee-yee ass, zebrass, jackass, a-double-s, assage, assback, ass-backward, ass backward, ass-backwards, ass backwards, assbag, ass bandit, ass beating, ass-blast, ass blast, assbrain, ass-brained, assbreath, ass-breath, ass breath, assbucket, Assburgers, assbutt, ass call, ass catch, asscheek, ass cheeks, assclown, ass clown, assclownery, ass crack, ass crack of dawn · +323 more

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for ass. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA