piss

English

 piss on Wikipedia

Etymology

From Middle English pisse (noun) and pissen (verb), from Old French pissier, possibly from Vulgar Latin *pīssiāre, probably of echoic origin. Compare Old Norse pissa (“to urinate, piss”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɪs/
• Rhymes: -ɪs

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

piss (countable and uncountable, plural pisses) (mildly vulgar, slang)

1. (usually uncountable) Urine.

   This toilet is disgusting. There's piss all over the floor.

   • 1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, , published 1612, →OCLC; reprinted Menston, Yorkshire: The Scolar Press, 1970, →OCLC, (please specify the GB page), scene II:

     [among the list of elixir ingredients] […] Of piss and egg-shells

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC, part I , page 8:

     Smells of men. Spat-on sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarettesmoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men’s beery piss, the stale of ferment.

   • 2005, Richard Connelly Miller, Tanglefoot:

     There in a puddle of piss sat Princess Fatima, her dress up over her knees, vomit dripping onto her bodice

2. (countable) The act of urinating.

   I'm desperate for a piss!

   • 1999, Tin House #2 (→ISBN, Win McCormack, Rob Spillman, Elissa Schappell), page 170:

     But the urinal was safe, no unshielded pissing trough, but a nice, modest urinal, with a wall on each side of you so you could have your privacy. That was one of the best pisses of my life.

3. (countable and uncountable) Alcoholic beverage, especially of inferior quality.
   • 1974, Donald Newlove, The Drunks, →ISBN, page 33:

     Let's dash over to Fisher's for a fifth of that one-fifty-one West Indian. We can't drink this piss, it's degrading.

   • 1985, Helen Garner, Yellow Notebook: Diaries 1978-1987, Text Publishing, published 2022, page 140:

     ‘Want some advice?’ I said. ‘Stay off the piss. You won't want to be handling this kind of thing with a hangover.’

4. (attributive) An intensifier.

   piss-poor

   • 1989, Kate Pullinger, When the monster dies, Jonathan Cape:

     Irene went down to her studio and brought the painting upstairs. She leaned it against a wall and then she and Mary contemplated it from across the room. 'It really is piss-ugly,' said Mary with a note of grudging affection in her voice.

   • 2007, C. N. Barton, The Cambridge Diaries: A Tale of Friendship, Love and Economics, Janus Publishing Company Lim, →ISBN, page 417:

     “You are piss funny, Caolan O'Donnell, you really are.”

   • 2016, Rae Earl, My Mad Fat Diary: A Memoir, St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN, page 267:

     Just watched Black Adder Goes Forth. Can I just say Ben Elton is my bloody hero for ever. If it wasn't for him I would still think voting Tory was OK. And he is piss funny ...

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:urine

Translations

Verb

piss (third-person singular simple present pisses, present participle pissing, simple past and past participle pissed) (mildly vulgar)

1. (intransitive) To urinate.

   When I got home I found a drunk pissing in my doorway.

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     O Jove, a beastly fault! And then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on ’t, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i’ the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe?

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, 1 Kings 14:10:

     Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC, part I , page 3:

     Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed quick short at an unsmelt rock.

   • 2008 November 21, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 3, Episode 1:

     Roy: The work was fiiine. There was nothing wrong with the work. But they caught him... He pissed in the sink. / Jen: Oh. Oh! / Roy: Yeah... / Jen: Which sink? / Roy: All the sinks. Yeah, he basically went on a pee parade around the house. / Jen: Oh God, I have to fire him.

2. (transitive) To discharge as or with the urine.

   Lately I've been pissing blood.

   • 1824, Alexander Burnett, The Medical Adviser, →OCLC, page 71:

     If any piss filthy matter, or little scales, or withal the urine have a strong smell, it shews ulceration of the bladder.

3. (transitive, chiefly British) To achieve easily.
   • 2018, Carl Fogarty, The World According to Foggy, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     "I'll piss this," I thought. "There's only Gary to beat and I beat him easily in both heats."

4. (transitive, intransitive) To rain heavily.
   • 1989, Christine Dann, Pip Lynch, Wilderness Women: Stories of New Zealand Women at Home in the Wilderness:

     She spent that night under her sheet of polythene and 'somehow managed to get only half wet', waking up the next morning to find that 'it had absolutely pissed down through the night'.

   • 2002, Will Self, Feeding Frenzy, Penguin UK, →ISBN:

     Let's face it, they're there for a good stroll on a Sunday afternoon when it's pissing outside.

   • 2013, Patricia Scanlan, With All My Love: A Novel, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 102:

     Normally she would have left the car at home and walked to the hotel but it was pissing rain and she didn't want to meet Jeff looking like a drowned rat.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:urinate

Translations

Interjection

piss

1. (mildly vulgar) Expresses anger, disappointment or dissatisfaction.
   • 1967, Walter Otto Weyrauch, The Law of a Small Group: A Report on the Berkeley Penthouse Experiments with Emphasis on Penthouse V. Parts I and II:

     At times he gets irritable, especially if he believes that something has been misplaced or lost: "Piss oh piss! -- where in the hell does everything go around here!"

   • 1992, Sandra Brown, Three Complete Novels, Wings, →ISBN:

     There was nothing left of the sundae except a puddle of white foam muddied by chocolate syrup, with a cherry floating on top. "Oh, piss," she muttered, "the ice cream's melted."

   • 2014, Michael Wiley, Blue Avenue: First in a noir mystery series set in Jacksonville, Florida, Severn House Publishers Ltd, →ISBN:

     Fowler was unresponsive when emergency services arrived and was declared dead at the scene. Fowler worked for the mayor's office for the past three years and twice ran unsuccessfully for city council. Police are asking anyone who saw a green Toyota or Honda SUV near the scene of the accident to contact them.' 'Piss!' Melchiori said again. 'He was a friend of mine.'

   • 2022, Terry McGuin, The Dracula Shark‎, page 179:

     Well, piss! I can't leave here now. Billy, call into the room and ask one of the girls to ask the Doc if he can guess how much longer it will be.

Translations

Derived terms

Anagrams

• ISPs, PSIS, SSPI, psis, sips

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɪs/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪs

Verb

piss

1. singular imperative of pissen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of pissen

Icelandic

Etymology

From pissa (“to pee”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pʰɪsː/
• Rhymes: -ɪsː

Noun

piss n (genitive singular piss, no plural)

1. (informal) pee, piss, urine

Declension

Synonyms

• (urine): hland, þvag

Derived terms

• rúðupiss

Further reading

• “piss” in the Dictionary of Modern Icelandic (in Icelandic) and ISLEX (in the Nordic languages)

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

piss

1. imperative of pisse

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

piss

1. imperative of pissa

Swedish

Etymology

Probably via Middle Low German pissen from Old French pissier (“to piss”)

Noun

piss n

1. (colloquial, vulgar) piss

   Synonyms: kiss, urin

2. (colloquial, vulgar) (something) very bad (in adjectival and adverbial usage)

   Synonym: skit

   Filmen var piss

   The movie sucked

   Det här smakar piss

   The tastes like shit

3. (colloquial, vulgar, in negations) shit (anything)

   Synonyms: skit, dugg, dyft, jota, skvatt, smack

   Jag förstår inte ett piss

   I don't understand a damn thing

Declension

Derived terms

• pissbomb
• pisseprov
• pissluder
• pissluffare
• pissruska

Related terms

• piss- (usually negative intensifier)
• pissa (“to piss”)
• pissig

References

• piss in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• piss in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• piss in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)