"pussy," adj. = weak; effeminate; cowardly; unmanly; soft or easy enough for women, but unbefitting a man.

[Jonathan Lighter]

Every little bit helps, as long as it's not acronymic explanation.  OED offers a few such cites, and I believe they essentially allude to the nature of felines. The social milieu appears to be rather different from that surrounding current use of the word.

JL

Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Sam Clements
Subject: Re: "pussy," adj. = weak; effeminate; cowardly; unmanly; soft or
easy enough for women, but unbefitting a man.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For some reason I posted about "pussy" a few months ago over at the Straight
Dope. I don't know where I got this info, whether on the list or in
searches online.

I said something to the effect that "pussy" was a term used in the late
1940's in theater circles to refer to homosexual males. Would this help?

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Lighter"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 11:05 AM
Subject: "pussy," adj. = weak; effeminate; cowardly; unmanly; soft or easy
enough for women, but unbefitting a man.


> Head for Memory Lane on this one, rounders.
>
> 1. OED does a poor job here because of the interference of "pussy-cat."
> No Time for explanation here, but a pondering of the printed evidence will
> show what I mean.
>
> 2. I have an incredibly early 1923 ex. from Jean Toomer's novel _Cane_,
> referring to a "pussy Sunday-school masqueradin' under a regular name,"
> whose appearance in print at that date seems to be explicable only through
> a presumably naive association with "pussycat." Any other explanations
> plausible ? In other words, is there any reason *not* to consider this as
> representing current usage ?
>
> 3. In 1969, the word becomes common in print, presumably owing to the
> relaxed attitude toward publishing previously taboo language.
>
> a. The sources strongly suggest that the word, so used,
> originated in Black English. Comments ?
>
> b. Can anyone offer strong testimonial evidence that they
> were quite familiar with the adj. before the late 1960s ? (FWIW, I
> haven't found this usage in a single autobiographical novel or memoir of
> WWII, no matter how recently published, suggesting that most white guys,
> who are, almost exclusively, the authors of such works, scarcely knew or
> used the term sixty-odd years ago.)
>
> 4. Same questions and comments go for "pussy," n., = sissy, coward,
> weakling, etc.
>
> 5. For the fellow geezers who can even remember so far back, was there
> ever the slightest doubt in your mind that these uses of "pussy" had
> *nothing whatever* to with little kitty cats?
>
> I'm editing the whole pussy nexus (as Henry Miller might have said) and
> don't want to look like a nincompoop (as Francis Grose might have said)
> when HDAS III appears.
>
> JL
>
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