How did a word for cats...
The Mystery of Meaning
Present DaySay the word “pussy” and watch reactions shift. For some, it's a term of endearment for a cat. For others, it's one of the most vulgar words in the language. For others still, it's an insult meaning coward. How did one word come to mean such wildly different things?
One word...
The answer lies in etymology—the study of word origins—and in the fascinating mechanisms by which language changes: metaphor, euphemism, and taboo. What we'll discover is that this word's journey mirrors the history of English itself, from Germanic roots through Norman influence, Victorian prudery, and American slang innovation.
Poes, Pūse, and the Sound of Softness
Medieval Europe • Pre-1500Blackletter: The angular, dense letterforms of medieval manuscripts
Before there was English “puss,” there was Dutch poes and Middle Low German pūse—conventional call-words for cats, the sounds you make when you want a cat to come. Similar words appear across Germanic languages and beyond: Lithuanian puižė, Irish puisín. The word may be onomatopoeic, mimicking the soft sounds humans use to attract felines.
Two Possible Roots
But there's another thread. Old Norse pūss meant “pocket” or “purse”—a container, a pouch. Old English pusa carried the same meaning. And in Low German, puse was used directly for vulva. The metaphor is ancient: a container, an enclosed space.
These two roots—the cat-calling sound and the container metaphor—may have merged in English, giving the word its strange double life from the very beginning.
Johannes Gutenberg
The Technology Enabler
c. 1400–1468
- Invented movable type printing (c. 1440)
- His Blackletter type represents the medieval era
- Printing enabled standardized spelling and word spread
First Appearances
c. 1530s–1583Garamond: Renaissance clarity, humanist proportion, scholarly elegance
By the 1530s, the word “puss” appears in English writing as a name for a cat (per the OED, first attested in the 16th century). Within fifty years, the word had already begun branching. In 1583, the Puritan pamphleteer Philip Stubbes wrote a line that would become crucial evidence for etymologists centuries later.
The Anatomie of Abuses, 1583
“The word pussie is now used of a woman.”
— Philip Stubbes
The first documented use of the word applied to females—not vulgar, but affectionate. Calling a woman soft and sweet like a cat.
The Affectionate Path
Stubbes wasn't describing vulgarity. The feminine usage was affectionate—a term of endearment, calling a woman soft and sweet like a cat. The same semantic path that gave us “kitten” and “pet” as terms of endearment.
This is crucial: the word's application to women preceded its vulgar meaning. The path was: cat → woman (soft, sweet) → anatomy (euphemism). Affection came first.
Philip Stubbes
The First Documenter
c. 1555–c. 1610
- English pamphleteer and Puritan moralist
- Wrote The Anatomie of Abuses (1583)
- First to document: 'The word pussie is now used of a woman'
Nicolas Jenson
The Humanist Typographer
c. 1420–1480
- Created the first true Roman typeface (1470)
- His type represents the Renaissance clarity
- Venice, the printing capital of the humanist world
A Health to Pusse
1664By the mid-17th century, the word had acquired its shadow meaning. We know this because poets comfortable with wordplay began using it with deliberate ambiguity. In 1664, Charles Cotton's burlesque translation of Virgil contained a toast that left no doubt about the double meaning.
“Aeneas, here's a Health to thee, To Pusse and to good company.”
— Charles Cotton, Virgile Travestie, 1664
The Euphemism Emerges
The vulgar meaning may have developed through multiple paths simultaneously. One theory connects it to Old Norse pūss (pocket), via metaphor. Another sees it as natural extension of the affectionate feminine usage. Perhaps both contributed—the word was destined for this meaning by its very sounds.
What matters is that by 1664, English speakers understood the double meaning well enough that poets could play with it. The word lived two lives.
Charles Cotton
The Double-Meaning Master
1630–1687
- English poet known for burlesque translations
- Wrote Virgile Travestie (1664)
- Documented the word's double meaning in verse
“Aeneas, here's a Health to thee, To Pusse and to good company.”
The Great Omission
1755Baskerville: Transitional elegance, sharper contrast, literary refinement
In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his monumental A Dictionary of the English Language—the first comprehensive dictionary of English. Johnson included words like “fart” and “piss.” But he did not include “pussy.” His silence speaks volumes.
A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
Johnson included “fart” and “piss.” His silence on “pussy” speaks volumes about the word's status by 1755.
The Dictionary as Gatekeeper
Johnson was creating a dictionary for “polite” society. His omission tells us that by 1755, the word had become too vulgar for a literary dictionary. The word was not unknown—it was too well known in the wrong way.
This is the moment when the word's status crystallized. In the century between Cotton's poem and Johnson's dictionary, “pussy” had crossed from wordplay to obscenity.
Samuel Johnson
The Great Omitter
1709–1784
- Created A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
- Notably OMITTED 'pussy' from his dictionary
- His silence reveals the word's vulgar status by the 18th century
Nursery and Shadow
1805–1900Bodoni: Didone drama, extreme contrast, Victorian elegance
The Victorian era crystallized the word's double life. In 1805, the nursery rhyme “Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat” was published—pure feline innocence, recited by children for generations. Meanwhile, in the shadows of adult vernacular, the vulgar meaning was thoroughly established.
The Nursery
“Pussy cat, pussy cat,
where have you been?
I've been to London
to visit the Queen.”
1805 — Children's literature
The Shadow
Meanwhile, in the shadows of adult vernacular, the vulgar meaning was thoroughly established...
1800s — Adult slang
Victorian Language Apartheid
The Victorians were masters of linguistic compartmentalization. They created separate vocabularies for public and private, for children and adults. The same word could exist in both worlds, never meeting. Children sang about pussycats while adults whispered about something else entirely.
This duality is the word's defining feature. It has never stopped meaning “cat.” It just also means something else—and which meaning you hear depends entirely on context.
James Murray
The OED Pioneer
1837–1915
- Primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary
- Documented the word's complete etymology
- Brought scholarly rigor to recording 'vulgar' terms
The Third Meaning
1960s–PresentHelvetica/Inter: Sans-serif clarity, digital neutrality, clinical modernity
American English added a third branch. By the 1960s, calling someone a “pussy” meant calling them a coward. The insult built on the anatomical meaning: feminine anatomy → femininity → weakness → cowardice. The word became a weapon.
Language Encodes Attitudes
This third meaning reveals how language encodes social attitudes. The chain of logic—that feminine equals weak, that weak equals cowardly—is a cultural assumption baked into the insult. Etymology becomes a mirror, showing us not just how words change, but what those changes reveal about the people using them.
Today, the word is primarily taboo. We censor it with asterisks (p***y), avoid it with euphemisms (“the p-word”), or speak it only in contexts of deliberate transgression. The feline meaning still exists—your grandmother might still call her cat “pussycat”—but it's overshadowed.
Modern avoidance strategies
The Euphemism Treadmill
PresentThe linguist Steven Pinker described the “euphemism treadmill”—the phenomenon where words invented to be polite eventually become impolite themselves, requiring new euphemisms. “Pussy” followed this path: affectionate term → euphemism → taboo.
What Etymology Teaches
The word “pussy” is a case study in how language lives. It demonstrates that words don't have fixed meanings—they have histories. Those histories are shaped by the people who use them, the contexts where they appear, and the cultural attitudes they encode.
Today, you can still buy pussy willows at a florist. You can still read “Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat” to a child. The innocent meaning never disappeared. But you'd think twice before saying the word aloud in many contexts. The taboo meaning has become dominant in collective consciousness—not because the word changed, but because we changed.
Three Branches, One Root
Words Have Histories
A single word, rooted in Germanic sounds for calling cats and Old Norse metaphors for pouches, became one of the most semantically complex words in English. It traveled from manuscript to printing press, from affection to euphemism, from euphemism to taboo.
The next time you encounter a word that seems simple, remember: every word is an archaeological site. Dig deep enough, and you'll find layers of history, culture, and human psychology—encoded in sounds we make with our mouths.
What histories are hidden in the words you use every day?
Timeline: 500 Years
Germanic Roots
Dutch 'poes', Middle Low German 'pūse' — call-words for cats
First English Attestation
'Puss' appears in English (OED: 16th c.)
Stubbes Documents
'The word pussie is now used of a woman'
Cotton's Poem
Double meaning explicitly documented
Johnson's Omission
Dictionary excludes the word entirely
'Pussycat' Compound
Term of endearment established
Nursery Rhyme
'Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat' published
American Innovation
'Coward' meaning becomes widespread
Today
The word primarily taboo, etymology fascinating
Sources & Further Reading
Etymology & Dictionaries
- Etymology Online: “Pussy”
- Oxford English Dictionary: “Pussy” (subscription required)
- Merriam-Webster: “Puss”
Primary Historical Sources
- Stubbes, Philip. The Anatomie of Abuses, 1583
- Cotton, Charles. Virgile Travestie, 1664
- Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
Linguistics & Language Change
- Pinker, Steven. The Stuff of Thought, 2007 (euphemism treadmill)
- Wikipedia: Semantic Change (overview with citations)
- Wikipedia: Euphemism Treadmill (overview with citations)
This etymology was researched using peer-reviewed sources, historical dictionaries, and primary texts. Typography specimens represent the visual history of English printing.