From Middle English fagot, from Old French fagot, of uncertain origin.

The senses relating to persons, though possibly originating as an extension of the sense "bundle of sticks", may have been reinforced by faygele, from Yiddish פֿייגעלע, related to English fowl.

• (British, America) IPA: /ˈfæ.ɡət/

faggot (plural faggots)

1. (chiefly, UK, Ireland, collective) A bundle of sticks or brushwood intended to be used for fuel tied together for carrying. (Some sources specify that a faggot is tied with two bands or withes, whereas a bavin is tied with just one.)
2. (obsolete) Burdensome baggage.
3. A bundle of pieces of iron or steel cut off into suitable lengths for welding.
4. (rare, dated in US) A burning or smouldering piece of firewood.
   • 1961, Poul Anderson, Three Hearts and Three Lions:

     He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them. The waning faggot cast red light over his fangs.

5. (now, sometimes, offensive, chiefly, UK, Ireland) A meatball made with offcuts and offal, especially pork. (See Wikipedia.)

   Synonyms: duck

   • 2008, Julie Hodgson, In My Father's Pockets, page 16:

     Today would be faggots in gravy and chocolate pudding with a white sauce. I didn't like faggots but picked at them and rolled the peas around my plate.

6. (offensive, vulgar, derogatory, chiefly, US, Canada) An annoying or inconsiderate person.
7. (UK, Irish, dated, colloquial, derogatory, now, offensive) A shrewish woman.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:shrew

   • 1796, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Autobiography ↗:

     she wants me to go to bed to her, and I won't, ... for she is as crooked as a ram's horn ... and as ugly as sin besides ; rot her, the dirty little faggot, she torments me.

   • 1834, William Carleton, The Midnight Mass ↗:

     The woman, in accordance with the custom of the country, raised the Irish cry, in a loud melancholy wail ...
     Darby, who prided himself on maintaining silence, could not preserve the consistency of his character upon this occasion ... "Your sowl to the divil, you faggot!" he exclaimed, "what do you mane? The divil whip the tongue out o' you! ..."

   • 1922, James Joyce, chapter 18, in Ulysses:

     he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit […]

   • 1925, D. H. Lawrence, Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays: .. Love Was Once a Little Boy:

     To me she is fractious, tiresome, and a faggot. Yet the subtle desirableness is in her, for me. As it is in the brown hen, or even a sow.

   • 1973, Hugh Leonard, Da:

     MOTHER: To see who?
     DA: You faggot, you; don't let on you don't know.

8. (offensive, vulgar, chiefly, US, Canada) A homosexual man, especially an effeminate one.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:male homosexual

   Coordinate terms: dyke, scissor sister

   • 1914, Louis E. Jackson and C.R. Hellyer, Vocabulary of Criminal Slang (Portland, OR: Modern Printing Co., 1914) page 30:

     Drag, Example: “All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.

   • 2004, Dennis Cooper, The Sluts, page 228:

     We're a hot looking crew that's your average faggot's wet dream, so we pull some pretty max tricks.

   • 2009, David L. Gold, Studies in Etymology and Etiology, page 781:

     Fleissner's explanation presumably implies that Dickens meant Fag as an allusion to the derogatory English words fag 'homosexual', and faggot 'homosexual'

   • 2012, Margaret Cho, quoted (mimicking Karl Lagerfeld) in On Making Sense: Queer Race Narratives of Intelligibility ↗

     Of course I'm a faggot, darling. I'm a flaming faggot, darling. I am fanning the flames of my faggotry.

9. (offensive, vulgar, chiefly, US, Canada) A man considered weak, effeminate, timid, pathetic, emotional, non-heteronormative in some way
10. (obsolete, possibly, now, offensive) A soldier numbered on the muster-roll, but not really existing.
11. (UK, Ireland, historical, possibly, now, offensive) A faggot voter.
    • 1973, Ellen Reid Gold, Gladstone in Midlothian: A Rhetorical Analysis of His 1879 Campaign, page 114:

      The Glasgow Herald thought that his attack on the faggots was too serious […]

12. (UK, Irish, dated, slang, now, offensive) A lazy, weak, work-shy person.

• French: fagot
• German: Brennholz, Scheit
• Spanish: leña

• French: fagot
• German: Reisigbündel
• Italian: fascio
• Portuguese: feixe
• Russian: вяза́нка
• Spanish: haz

• Spanish: albóndiga de puerco, albóndiga de cerdo

• German: Arschloch, Mistkerl, Drecksack, Ekel, Widerling, Kotzbrocken
• Spanish: huevón

faggot (faggots, present participle faggoting; simple past and past participle faggoted)

1. Alternative form of fagot