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Bitch, literally meaning a female dog, is a slang pejorative for a person, commonly a woman, who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, a control freak, rudely intrusive or aggressive. When applied to a man, ''bitch'' is a derogatory term for a subordinate. Its original use as a vulgarism, documented to the fourteenth century, suggested high sexual desire in a woman, comparable to a dog in heat. The range of meanings has expanded in modern usage. In a feminist context, it can indicate a strong or assertive woman. The word "bitch" is one of the most common curse words in English. According to Dr. Timothy Jay, there are “over 70 different taboo words” but 80 percent of the time only ten words are used, and the word bitch is included in this set of ten. ==History== The term "bitch" comes from the 1150 word ''bicche'', which was developed from the Old English word ''bicce''. It also may have been derived from the Old Norse word ''bikkja'' for "female dog". The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' dates the term meaning "female dog" to around 1000 A.D. It is believed that the definition of a female dog for the term "bitch" derived from the Greek Goddess Artemis. This connection was made because she is the goddess of the hunt. She was often portrayed with a pack of hunting dogs and sometimes transformed into an animal herself. She is free, vigorous, cold, impetuous, unsympathetic, beautiful. As a derogatory term for women, it has been in use since the fourteenth〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= bitch )〕 or fifteenth century.〔 Its earliest slang meaning mainly referred to sexual behavior, according to the English language historian Geoffrey Hughes:〔Hughes, Geoffrey. 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.〕
"Bitch" remained a strong insult through the nineteenth century. The entry in Francis Grose's ''Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) reads : Throughout the word’s evolution into the nineteenth century, it lessened from Grose’s claim. The Oxford English Dictionary within the nineteenth century described the insult as “strictly a lewd or sensual woman”. The word went through many similar phases throughout history. It was not until the 20th century that feminism began to reevaluate the term and its appropriation. The next resurgence of the word "bitch" as an insult to women occurred during the 1920s. The term "bitch" became more popular in common language during this era. Between 1915 and 1930, the use of "bitch" in newspapers and literature more than doubled. Ernest Hemingway was a strong proponent of the term during this time. He was known to expand the meaning of "bitch" to a more modern definition. He used it to represent favorable qualities such as ferocity, edginess, and grit. It was during this time that women began gaining more freedom (such as the right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment). This new found freedom women possessed upset the male-dominated society making anti feminist men of the time feel threatened, possibly leading to retaliation through name-calling. The word "bitch" during the twenties meant “malicious or consciously attempting to harm,” “difficult, annoying, or interfering,” and “sexually brazen or overly vulgar”. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bitch (insult)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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