bitch

English

Etymology

From Middle English biche, bicche, from Old English biċċe, from Proto-West Germanic *bikkjā, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ (compare Norwegian bikkje (“dog”), Old Danish bikke), from *bikjaną (“to thrust, attack”) (compare Old Norse bikkja (“plunge into water”), Dutch bikken (“to hack”)). More at bicker.

Pronunciation
  • enPR: bĭch, IPA(key): /bɪt͡ʃ/
  • (Can we verify(+) this pronunciation?) (Slang) IPA(key): /bɪt͡s/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (UK)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪtʃ

Noun

bitch (countable and uncountable, plural bitches)

  1. (dated or specialised, dog-breeding) A female dog or other canine, particularly a recent mother.
    My bitch just had puppies; they're so cute!
    • 1953, LIFE, volume 34, number 6, page 110:
      All members of one breed, both dog and bitch, champion and nonchampion, are judged in a series of competitions until only one animal remains.
  2. (archaic, offensive) A promiscuous woman, slut, whore.[1]
  3. (vulgar, offensive) A despicable or disagreeable, aggressive person, usually a woman. [from 15th c.]
    Ann gossiped about me and mocked my work; sometimes she can be a real bitch!
    • 1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Symptomes of Iealousie, Fear, Sorrow, Suspition, Strange Actions, Gestures, Outrages, Locking Up, Oathes, Trials, Lawes, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed [by Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 3, member 2, subsection 1, page 610:
      He cals her on a ſudden, all to naught; ſhe is a ſtrumpet, a light huswife, a bitch, an arrant whore.
    • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Chapter 4”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
      'Look at the children, you nasty little bitch!' he sneered.
    • 1962 [1959], William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, New York: Grove Press, page 83:
      HASSAN: "You cheap Factualist bitch! Go and never darken my rumpus room again!"
  4. (vulgar, offensive) A woman.
    • 1996, “Hit 'Em Up”, in Tupac Shakur and the Outlawz (lyrics), Johnny "J" (music), Hit 'Em Up‎, performed by 2Pac, California: Death Row Records:
      Biggie, remember when I used to let you sleep on the couch, and beg the bitch to let you sleep in the house?
    • 2003, “If I Can't”, in Curtis Jackson (lyrics), Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo (music), Get Rich or Die Tryin', performed by 50 Cent, New York City: Shady Records:
      Niggas on my dick more than my bitches.
  5. (vulgar, offensive) A man considered weak, effeminate, timid or pathetic in some way
    1. (LGBT, slang, derogatory) An obviously gay man.[2]
  6. (vulgar, offensive) A submissive person who does what others want; (prison slang) a man forced or coerced into a homoerotic relationship. [from the 20th c]
    Dude, don't be such a bitch. Assert yourself.
    You're so weak-willed with your girlfriend. You must be the real bitch in the relationship.
    • 1999 September 23, Chris Sheridan, “This House Is Freakin’ Sweet”, “Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater”, Family Guy, season 2, episode 1, Fox Broadcasting Company
      Now that you're stinking rich, we'd gladly be your bitch.
  7. (obsolete, informal, of a man) A playful variation on dog (sense "man"). [from the 16th c]
  8. (humorous, vulgar, colloquial, used with a possessive pronoun) Friend. [from the 20th c]
    What’s up, my bitch?
    How my bitches been doin'?
  9. (vulgar, colloquial) A complaint, especially when the complaint is unjustified.
  10. (colloquial, vulgar) A difficult or confounding problem.
    Level 5 was a real bitch, don’t you think?
    That's a bitch of a question.
  11. (colloquial, vulgar, card games) A queen playing card, particularly the queen of spades in the card game of hearts.
    Coordinate term: butcher
  12. (vulgar, figurative) Something unforgiving and unpleasant.
    • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, →OCLC, page 27:
      […] he wrote to me last week telling me about an incredible bitch of a row blazing there on account of someone having been and gone and produced an unofficial magazine called Raddled, full of obscene libellous Oz-like filth. And what I though, what Sammy and I thought, was—why not?
    Karma's a bitch.
  13. (vulgar, informal, slang) Place; situation
    I'm 'bout to get up outta this bitch.
  14. (UK, obsolete, university slang) Tea (the drink).
    • 1824, Gradus Ad Cantabrigiam: Or, New University Guide to the Academical Customs, and Colloquial Or Cant Terms Peculiar to the University of Cambridge, Observing Wherein It Differs from Oxford, page 131:
      […] seldom gets "a little the worse for liquor," gives no swell parties, runs very little into debt, takes his cup of bitch at night, and goes quietly to bed, and thus he passes his time in a way a Varmint man would despise.
  15. (chess, slang, vulgar, offensive) A queen.

Usage notes
  • While bitch’s original canine sense permits it to be used in most media, it remains offensive enough that, in the US, it is often minced (as b, b-word, or female dog) in formal contexts.

Alternative forms
(offensive senses):

Euphemisms:

Synonyms

Hyponyms

Female canine

Derived terms

Descendants
  • → Dutch: bitch
  • →? German: Betze, Bätze, Petze
  • → French: bitch

Translations
playful variation on dog (sense "man") — see dog
complaint — see complaint

References

Verb

bitch (third-person singular simple present bitches, present participle bitching, simple past and past participle bitched)

  1. (vulgar, intransitive) To behave or act as a bitch.
  2. (vulgar, intransitive) To criticize spitefully, often for the sake of complaining rather than in order to have the problem corrected.
    All you ever do is bitch about the food I cook for you!
    • 2008, Patterson Hood, The Righteous Path:
      I ain't bitching 'bout things that aren't in my grasp
      Just trying to hold steady on the righteous path.
  3. (vulgar, transitive) To spoil, to ruin.
    • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 162:
      'You're a Franco-maniac…You're thought to be a French agent…That's what's bitching your career!'
    • 1956, Ian Fleming, Diamonds are Forever, published 1965, page 100:
      "Shy Smile didn't pay off." "I know. The jockey bitched it. So what?"

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

References
  1. Geoffrey Hughes, Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2006:
    The early applications were to a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a bitch in heat. Herein lies the original point of the powerful insult son of a bitch, found as biche sone ca. 1330 in Arthur and Merlin ... while in a spirited exchange in the Chester Play (ca. 1400) a character demands: “Whom callest thou queine, skabde bitch?” (“Who are you calling a whore, you miserable bitch?”).
  2. A. F. Niemoeller, "A Glossary of Homosexual Slang," Fact 2, no. 1 (Jan-Feb 1965): 25

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English bitch, from Middle English biche, bicche, from Old English biċċe, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /bɪtʃ/
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: bitch

Noun

bitch f (plural bitches, diminutive bitchje n)

  1. (derogatory) bitch (somewhat general term of abuse for a woman; disagreeable, assertive, aggressive or malicious woman)
    Synonyms: teef, trut, kreng
  2. (derogatory) bitch (person in a submissive or low-placed position)

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English bitch, from Middle English biche, bicche, from Old English biċċe, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ. Doublet of bichon.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /bitʃ/
  • Audio(file)

Noun

bitch f (plural bitchs)

  1. bitch (disagreeable, despicable woman)
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