Anglo-Saxon monosyllable:

From Edward Sagarin's The Anatomy of Dirty Words (1962): 'When one sees a word written as followed by a dash or some asterisks, as f--- or f***, one need not wonder whether the term refers to fair or foul, to fame or folly, to fathead or fatuousness. The monarch reigns over the language. No other word of the English language could be so readily understood with so little explication, and yet, poor fuck, it is not even permitted to gain access to our greatest and most complete lexicographical efforts. When one refers to an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable, no one thinks of go or big, of bread or.... There is only one such Anglo-Saxonism, although there is some dispute as to whether it did in fact derive from Old English.'
See Also: Anglo-Saxon monosyllable

Link to this page:

Word Browser