nasty [LME] The origins of nasty, which was first recorded in the Middle Ages, are uncertain, although it is probably related to Dutch and Swedish words with similar meaning. It originally meant ‘filthy, offensively dirty’, but its force has been gradually toned down, although in America it remains a more strongly negative term than it is in Britain. The phrase something nasty in the woodshed comes from the comic novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons: Aunt Ada Doom’s peculiarities are explained by the fact that when she was small she had seen something nasty in the woodshed, but we are never told what. Nasty piece of work or nasty bit of work, ‘an unpleasant person’, is recorded from the mid 19th century. In informal English nasty [E19th] can also be a noun, meaning ‘a nasty person’ or ‘an unpleasant or harmful thing’.