Where words came from: "crap"

It's time for some vulgar language. Where does the word crap come from?

What does it mean?

Crap is one of the most common adjectives and nouns in every day English. It is vulgar but only mildly vulgar, so most people do not find it offensive. Nonetheless you wouldn't want to say it to the Queen's face. Furthermore, it is a criticism; people would not be pleased if you described their hard work as "crap".

Mr Crapper

A popular piece of misinformation states that we took the word from a "Thomas Crapper", the supposed inventor of the flushing toilet. In reality he did not invent the toilet and this is not the origin of the word crap. The flushing toilet was invented by John Harington in 1596.

Thomas Crapper did live up to his name though: he was a British plumber and sanitary engineer who promoted the use of sanitary plumbing and started a company which manufactured bath, toilet, and sink products, and presented them in the world's first showroom for bathroom fittings.

So where did it come from?

1 [Medieval Latin]
 crappe - chaff (removed part of wheat)

2a [Old Dutch]
krappen - to cut off

2b [Old French]
krappe - chaff, waste, rejected matter

3 [Middle English]
crappe - chaff

4 [Modern English]
crap:

1. (noun) Something nonsensical (You're talking complete crap)
2. (noun) faeces (I stepped in some crap)
3. (adjective) something useless or low quality (This phone is crap)
4. (verb) to defecate (I need to go take a crap / I need to crap)

The connection between the two is clear: we must remove useless waste from useful wheat when harvesting crops, and we must remove the useless crap when digesting our food.

I must credit the contributors over at wiktionary for their hard work on this topic.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article.