faggot [ME] Faggot was first recorded in the sense ‘bundle of sticks for fuel’. It comes via Old French from Italian fagotto, which was based on Greek phakelos ‘bundle’. Towards the end of the 16th century, the word came to be used as an abusive term for a woman; later, in the early 20th century, this was applied as offensive slang in US English to a male homosexual. The abbreviation fag dates from the 1920s. Faggot also came to be used for any general bundle or collection of things by the end of the 15th century, and this is the source of faggot for the traditional English dish known as a faggot [M19th], which is made up from miscellaneous bits of chopped pork and offal bundled together.