C-word Definition & Meaning

American

British

Etymology

Examples

C-word American [see-wurd] / ˈsiˌwɜrd / Also c word or c-word

noun

1. a euphemism for the word cunt : She actually said to my face, “Listen, your sister is a C-word, and that’s a fact!”

   I can’t believe you used the c-word in front of the kids.

   She actually said to my face, “Listen, your sister is a C-word, and that’s a fact!”

c-word British

noun

1. taboo (sometimes capital) a euphemistic way of referring to the word cunt

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of C-word

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

However, after an operation to rectify the problems, she said she "heard the dreaded C-word" and was diagnosed with pseudomyxoma peritonei – a rare tumour that causes a build-up of a jelly-like substance in the abdomen.

From BBC

Hod Lipson, a roboticist at Columbia University, said that some people in his field referred to consciousness as “the C-word.”

From New York Times

“We were almost forbidden from talking about it — ‘Don’t talk about the c-word; you won’t get tenure’ — so in the beginning I had to disguise it, like it was something else.”

From New York Times

He began to say the c-word out loud: He wants to create conscious robots.

From New York Times

Some doctors say it’s time to rename low-grade prostate cancer to eliminate the alarming C-word.

From Seattle Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.