English
slut
Slut comes from Middle English slutt.
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500slutt
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1597slut
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500slutt
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1597slut
Earliest quotation: c. 1597, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wiues of Windsor: “Where fires thou find’st unrak’d, and hearths unswept, /…”
The story
From Middle English slutt, slutte, slute (‘a dirty or slovenly person, usually a woman, scullery maid; messy animal to prepare as food; slush, mud’), probably from Old English *slȳte (‘sleet’), from Proto-West Germanic *slautijā, from Proto-Germanic *slautijǭ (‘sleet, hail’), related to Proto-West Germanic *slaut (‘puddle, ditch’).
Linked words
through Proto-West Germanic *slautijā ‘hail, sleet’
Today it means
noun A sexually promiscuous woman.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle English slutt / slut