10 Things You Didn’t Know Had Dirty-Sounding Names

There are millions of words in the English language—too many to know the definition of every single one. However, it’s fun to learn what specific, tiny things have their own name. Take the word petrichor, which is the smell after it rains. Or aglet, which is the plastic on the end of a shoelace. While these are cool names, wouldn’t it be a little cooler if they sounded a little more… naughty?

Here are 10 small things you didn’t know had names that sound lewd but actually aren’t.

Related: Top 10 Coolest Slang Terms and Phrases from around the World

10 Bunghole

If you’re a fan of Beavis and Butthead, you may have actually heard this word before. But unless you’re really into barrel-making, you probably have no idea what it really means.

A bunghole is a small hole in a liquid-bearing barrel through which the contents can be emptied. They’re usually plugged with a cork of some kind. But the humor of the word dates as far back as 1653, in a translation of Gargantua by Francois Rabelais, which lists “bunghole” as one of many insults.

Since then, the word has evolved toward a more… er… colorful definition. From Beavis and Butthead to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, most people now use “bunghole” as a family-friendly alternative to “butthole.”^[1]

9 Vagitus

Even though it sounds like a yeast infection medication, “vagitus” is a word that means the cry of a newborn child. In ancient Roman religion, Vagitanus was the name of a religious deity who guided childbirth, specifically encouraging the child to speak for the first time.

However, this is different from helping the child say his or her first actual words. This was presided over by the god Fabulinus, an entirely separate entity. “Vagitus,” therefore, is specifically related to the cries and screams of the baby during childbirth.

The word has been in use since ancient times, with historical figures such as Pliny and Saint Augustine using variations of the phrase.^[2]

8 F-Hole

Most acoustic instruments are hollow with wooden resonance chambers to amplify the sound of the strings. In order to let the sound out, there must be openings within the object (think about the hole in the center of a guitar).

In a violin, these are called f-holes. Don’t let your mind wander, though. The “f” doesn’t actually stand for anything; it’s just the shape the hole takes. And this wasn’t just created because it looked nice. It’s actually the result of hundreds of years of experimentation on violins in order to find how to best amplify the sound. According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology acoustician Nicholas Matrkis, the longer the sound hole, the more sound can escape. The skinniness of the f-hole takes up less space on the instrument while still producing the same amount of sound as a rounder one.^[3]

7 Interrobang

Humans are amazing. Over the centuries, we’ve figured out how to make life easier with inventions such as the printing press, the Internet, the telephone, and the… interrobang.

No more do you have to type or write out both an exclamation point and a question mark when you want to convey confusion and excitement at the same time. Ever since the invention of the interrobang in 1962, you can save seconds by utilizing this mix between both punctuation marks.

Writer Martin K. Speckter believed advertisements would look better if rhetorical questions such as “How many times has this happened to you!?” would look better if they were punctuated by a single mark rather than two. After drawing up the symbol, Speckter decided to call it the interrobang after the Latin word “interrogatio,” which means “cross-examination,” and “bang,” which was slang for an exclamation mark.

Though it’s not used often, the symbol is basically a question mark with an exclamation point inside it. Sure, you could type out both, but where’s the fun in that‽^[4]

6 Gynecomastia

If you have any interest in etymology, you might be able to figure out what this word means. “Gyne” is an old Greek word that means “feminine,” and “mastia” means “breasts.” Think of gynecologists and mastectomy. Though this seems pretty straightforward, the combination of words, in this case, actually refers to breasts on men.

Today, we often see these as “man boobs,” but they’re actually quite different. Any overweight man might have a larger chest, but gynecomastia is an actual medical condition where a male experiences excessive breast development. This can be caused by many things, such as hormonal imbalances from higher levels of estrogen. In fact, more than half of male babies are born with enlarged breasts, but the swollen breast tissue usually goes away within a few weeks.^[5]

5 Aphthong

“One knight, a king and a queen went to bed. The doors were locked; no one came in, and no one came out. In the morning, the king and queen had been murdered. Who did it?” This riddle doesn’t quite work on paper but say it aloud to a friend, and the aphthong in “knight” will trick them into thinking “knight” actually meant “night.”

An aphthong is basically the term for a letter that appears in a word but isn’t pronounced. “Knight” actually has two of these. The “k” at the beginning and the “gh.” Sure, you could just say “silent letter,” but then you wouldn’t get to flex your knowledge.

See what I did there?^[6]

4 Peen

The less-useful side of the hammer has an even less useful name—the peen. Ball-peen hammers, also known as machinists hammers, are generally used in metalworking. Within this profession, “peening” is the act of “working a metal’s surface to improve its material properties, usually by mechanical means.”

Regardless of whether the hammer you’re referring to is a ball-peen type, the non-flat side of the object is always called the peen, whether it’s a ball, wedge, or cross.^[7]

3 Crapulence

No, this one wasn’t made up by The Simpsons.

Not to be confused with the polite word for a fart, “crapulence” is a word that sounds exactly like what it means: “sickness or indisposition caused by excessive drinking or eating, or gross intemperance, especially in drinking.” Basically, it’s a more fun word for bloating or hangover.

Oddly, the word has quite a rich etymological history. It’s derived from the Latin adjective “crapulosus,” which itself came from the Latin word “crapula,”‘ meaning “intoxication.” Crapula came to be used by the Greeks as a way to refer to that piercing headache you get after a long night of drinking. In the 1700s, “crapula” changed to “crapulence,” which is a more general sickness after alcohol, not just a headache.

Though you may think that this word or the aforementioned Latin root is the basis for calling something “crappy,” you’d be wrong. “Crap” comes much later from a British term meaning “residue from rendered fat.” Even weirder, calling the toilet “crapper” has nothing to do with either root words. Thomas Crapper invented the earliest version of plumbing equipment in the 1800s, leading to the moniker “crapper” for toilets.

That’s a lot of historical crap.^[8]

2 Tittle

Everyone knows the most fun part of learning to write is dotting your “i’s.” Or should I say “tittling” your “i’s?”

That’s right, it’s no ordinary dot. That little mark on the top of the lowercase “i” and “j” is called a tittle. Don’t believe me? Ask the Bible. Matthew 5:18 reads, “For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matthew probably didn’t literally mean the dot above the letter “i” but used it as a general way of indicating something small or insignificant.

Obviously, not many people use this word in everyday life, but you might be saying something similar without even knowing it. It is thought that the phrase “to a T” was originally “to a tittle,” meaning everything down to the tiniest detail was taken care of.^[9]

1 Throbber

Some call it the spinning pinwheel, some call it the loading circle, and some call it the… throbber.

Well, not many call it the throbber, even though that is the official name of any animated graphical control element that shows a computer is performing an action. They’re frequently shown when downloading content or calculating something. The icon is also often mixed up with a progress bar, though there’s one large difference. Throbbers don’t show you how far your computer is in the loading process.

So, who came up with this brilliant and not-at-all-sexual name? Before Internet Explorer was introduced, there was Netscape. This web browser’s loading icon was a blue “N” expanding and contracting, giving the impression it was throbbing. And that’s the name they went with.

I think I’ll stick with “loading circle.”^[10]