For other uses of the term, see faggot

In modern American and Canadian usage faggot or fag is a generally pejorative term for gay men. The origins of the word in this sense have been clouded by mythology.

It has been frequently said that it derives from faggot in the sense of a bundle of sticks, because homosexual men were burned at the stake for sodomy and faggots were used as kindling. A variant on this is that homosexual men were themselves used as kindling. The gay liberation movement of the 1970s promoted this supposed derivation to highlight the historical oppression of homosexual men.

There is, however, no historical evidence for these supposed derivations, and the use of the term faggot for gay men goes back only to the 19th century. The fact that the word appeared in the United States, and not in Britain, where burnings for sodomy did take place until the 17th century, makes this derivation unlikely.

The more likely derivation is that faggot was originally a derogatory term for street prostitutes, female and male, because they were associated with "the gutter", where "faggot-ends" of meat were thrown by butchers. The term "faggot girls" for prostitutes is attested from the late 19th century. It is also possible that the expression "fag" meaning a cigarette-butt, something which is used and thrown in the gutter, contributed to the derivation of the word. Cigarette smoking was also at one time considered effeminate, so this may have also contributed to the word's modern use.

"Fag" was also a term used for a junior boy who acted as a servant for a senior at Eton College, near Eton, Berkshire. This practice, known as "fagging", was ended in the 1970s.

Faggot has historically been one of the most offensive terms that could be addressed to an American male; even so, in recent years it has come to be used by gay men in a defiant or self-mocking way, rather as African Americans have taken to using the word "nigger". A common example of this would be usage of the term "fag hag" to describe a woman who likes to hang out with gay men. When used as a pejorative, however, it is still a powerful term of abuse. (See Fred Phelps and his "God hates fags" campaign, for example.)

Originally confined to the United States, faggot has been spread by American popular culture to other English-speaking countries, where it has partly displaced British English terms such as queer and poof as colloquial or abusive terms for gay men, particularly among heterosexual youth. However, due to the use of the slang term fag in British slang for cigarette, the usage is nowhere near common, with words such as poof and batty boy more common.