cunt

A term for the female genitals, and a highly insulting term (if you're American; many people in Britain and Austrailia actually use it among frends as a term of endearment). "Pudenda" is used more often and concidered aomewhat less "value-laden", but it's often overlooked that "pudenda" comes from "pudendum", which means "shameful part"; many societies see the vulva as unclean and/or shameful, but there's nothing shameful about the female genitals. "Cunt" is a native English word (and there aren't many of those) It goes back to an Old Germanic stem "kunton". It may have arose by Grimm's law operating on the Proto-Indo-European root gen/gon = "create, become" seen in gonads, genital, gamete, genetics, gene, or the Proto-Indo-European root gwne/gune = "woman" seen in gynaecology. The prefix 'cu' is one of the oldest word-sounds in recorded language. It is an expression quintessentially associated with femininity, and is the basis of 'cow' ('female animal'), 'queen' ('female monarch'), and, of course, 'cunt' ('female genital'). The word's second most significant influence is the Latin term 'cuneus', meaning 'wedge', from which comes 'cunnus' ('vagina'). Sadly, this ancient word has been abused so much, and has been used against women very often.