balance This page has one sentence about the basic definition of the word and a huge amount about the slang profane uses Perhaps the former should be extended is there no information about female dogs available beyond their name This is an encyclopaedia not a dictionary i feel that whoever is looking this definition up is very appropiate and should be deleted from wikipedia IMMEDIATLY this word is used very often and is also a very mean word i belive that is majorly true very much so okay so the good meaning is a female dog BITCH Preceding unsigned comment added by etymology The word bitch is from the Old Norse Bikkjuna meaning female of the dog of unknown origin Grimm derives the Old Norse words from Lapp Pittja But OED notes that the converse is equally possible The adj Bitchy was first seen in 1925 The verb meaning to complain in 1930 Slang Bitchen good is attested to the 1950 s reclaiming the word bitch The word bitch is actually only offencive in American and Canadian English In most other English variants bitch maintains it s correct definition female canine People have argued that bitch is different because it is used as an insult but so is pig dog cow and others These are not considered profane so why is bitch As far as I am concerned there is nothing to reclaim as bitch simply means a female canine It may be used as a pejorative or descriptor that does not make it a profanity It should definately say something about Kyle Vanderweilen and all his bitchin Is there any particular evidence of women reclaiming the word bitch in the 90s Can anyone point to articles on this etc The song is definitely interesting and belongs here but doesn t actually reclaim the word bitch any more than it reclaims the word sinner Also I don t really understand the last paragraph and it sucks I was going to try and clear it up but I realized I don t know what it means Can someone point to a source that lays out the argument about bitches fertility and patriarchy more clearly We don t need articles at all as I there are definitely enough examples even outside of the 90s Missy Elliot cleary and repeatedly reclaims the word for instance She s a Bitch References are fine just the name Missy Elliot got me to find a quote of a rolling stone review that mentioned reclaiming the word In fact if some one knows more about her it might be interesting to add a section on her work and on how it relates to women slurs more generally within hip hop How relevant is this reclamation It seems to me poison for a woman to use an epithet which still strongly connotes despised traits I don t see how using a word connoting querolous spiteful and malicious can be empowering But I don t know life s a bitch It stems from a reaction to the prevalence of tagging any woman who doesn t adhere to a certain standard of femininity as a bitch To use a literary example in the novel The Handmaid s Tale the narrator related the feeling that whenever she outsmarted a man she could almost hear him calling her a bitch in his mind even her own husband That literary reaction you recited is jealousy men have names for other men who outsmart them too but not having a word like bitch for them they have to resort to a greater variety of pejoritive epithets Though you haven t been specific I think that standard of femininity you referred to is a pretext for subordination which both sexes often strive to impose on the other but men have traditionally had more power Because it is such a popular epithet in slang the connotations of bitch are diffuse though still commonly pernicious I think bitch in itself is not chiefly a denunciation to punish women who do not conform to that standard but rather a contemptuous word often used for it However I still don t see the point of reclamation for if bitch were purged of contem