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Revision as of 12:34, 29 November 2005

Twat is a vulgar expression primarily used to refer to the human vagina.

Robert Browning famously misused the term in his 1841 poem Pippa Passes, believing it to be an item of nun's clothing:

Then owls and bats

Cowls and twats

Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry

Its meaning was in reality the same then as now, Browning's misconception probably having arisen from a line in a 1660 satirical poem, Vanity of Vanities:

They talk't of his having a Cardinalls Hat

They'd send him as soon an Old Nuns Twat

Although the term was not notable enough to be included in George Carlin's original seven dirty words, it was one of three words (the others being fart and turd) that later made his slightly expanded 10-word version. The term may be an inherently funny word, as it is prone to wordplay, a common example being the dirty pun, "twat did you say? I cunt hear you." Another well-used joke has an airplane passenger on Trans World Airlines suggesting to a coffee-bearing flight attendant that he would rather sample her "TWA Tea". More recently, bloggers and internet pundits have used the word as a parodic acronym for "The War Against Terror".

It is sometimes combined with the synonym cunt, to form "twunt".

The term can also indicate the following:

• A fool
• One who behaves in a childish, extroverted manner
• To hit something really hard
• To be beaten severely - A twatting

There is an urban legend that "twat" is a term for a gravid goldfish.

External links

• Twat v. Browning January 19, 2005, Language Log. Retrieved July 30th 2005.
• Is a pregnant goldfish called a twit? The Straight Dope. Retrieved July 30th 2005.

• Profanity