The phrase four-letter word refers to a set of English-language words written with four letters which are considered profane, including common popular or slang terms for excretory functions, sexual activity and genitalia, and (depending on the listener/reader) sometimes also certain terms relating to Hell and damnation when used outside their original religious context, and/or slurs. The "four-letter" claim refers to the fact that a large number of English "swear words" are incidentally four-character monosyllables. This euphemism came into use during the first half of the twentieth century.
Common four-letter words (in this sense) that are widely considered vulgar or offensive to a notable degree include: cunt, fuck (and regional variants such as feck, fick and foak), jism (or gism), jizz, piss, shit, twat and tits. Piss in particular, however, may be used in non-excretory contexts (pissed off, i.e. "angry", in US English; pissed, i.e. "drunk" in UK English) that are often not considered particularly offensive, and the word also occurs several times with its excretory meaning in the King James Bible. Several of these (including even piss, despite its biblical pedigree) have been declared legally indecent under the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) TV and radio open-airwave broadcasting regulations.
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