Question: is mutt a bad word?
Answer: Mutt can now be used with either affection or disdain to refer to a dog that is not purebred, but in the word's early history, in the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century, it could also be used to describe a person - and not kindly: "mutt" was another word for "fool." The word's history lies in another insult.