Learn English – Use of ‘pussy’ as term of endearment

meaningnounsword-usage

 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHDEL), Fifth Edition (© 2011)1, lists one of the meanings of 'pussy' as:

  1. (Chiefly British) Sweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.

 However, I have not come across this sense of the word in books I have read or other dictionaries. I have checked Oxford Dictionaries Online, the Collins English Dictionary — Complete and Unabridged, 12th edition (© 2014) 1, and the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. This sense of the word 'pussy' is also not found in the prior fourth edition of the AHDEL (© 2000). It seems like an odd addition, especially given this more common sense of the word, which is also found in the AHDEL Fifth Edition:

  1. Offensive Slang A woman, or women, viewed as a source of sexual gratification.

 Is the endearing sense of 'pussy' actually used in past or present times? If so, what kind of literature is it most commonly found in?

1These editions and dates can presently be verified at The Free Dictionary by Farlex.

Best Answer

According to etymonline.com, the word pussy is a diminutive of the word puss, which means cat, and which was also used as both an insult and, subsequently, a term of endearment for women (emphasis mine):

puss (n.1)

 "cat," 1520s, but probably much older than the record, perhaps imitative of the hissing sound commonly used to get a cat's attention. A conventional name for a cat in Germanic languages and as far off as Afghanistan; it is the root of the principal word for "cat" in Rumanian (pisica) and secondary words in Lithuanian (puz), Low German (puus), Swedish dialect katte-pus, etc. Applied to a girl or woman from c. 1600, originally in a negative sense, implying unpleasant cat-like qualities; but by mid-19c. in affectionate use.

Puss gave rise to pussy which was used in the same basic way:

pussy (n.1)

"cat," 1726, diminutive of puss (n.1), also used of a rabbit (1715). As a term of endearment for a girl or woman, from 1580s (also used of effeminate men). To play pussy was World War II RAF slang for "to take advantage of cloud cover, jumping from cloud to cloud to shadow a potential victim or avoid recognition."

I remember being quite shocked as an adolescent when, while reading an Agatha Christie novel, I came across as description of a kindly old lady as "a nice old pussy" (the quote below may or may not be the one I remember, I found it in what seems to be a collected edition entitled "A Caribbean Mystery ; A Pocket Full of Rye ; The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side ; They Do it with Mirrors available in Google Books):

excerpt

I also found the following in The Detective Novels of Agatha Christie: A Reader's Guide by James Zemboy:

"A Nice Old Pussy" who lives with Ann Shapland's mother and copes most of the time.

And, in the same book, an explanation of the usage for modern readers:

excerpt from the book

I found few other examples. I'm sure there are more but, as you can imagine, my search was confounded by the other, more vulgar meaning of the word. This one is from The Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller, Volume 1, and seems to be used to describe the author's daughter, of all people:

book excerpt

So yes, the word was indeed used as a form of endearment, at least as recently as the first half of the previous century. However, I strongly advise you not to use the word as a term of endearment. You will very likely be misunderstood unless the context is very clear.

Finally, while I have spent 4 years living in the UK, that was more than a decade ago and I can't claim to be an expert on BrE. Nevertheless, I will attest to never having heard the term used as a form of endearment for non-felines there and I would be very surprised to learn that said usage is still common.

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