Why Do We Say “P.U.” for a Bad Smell? | Smartest Year Ever (Mar 24, 2025)
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Why do we say “P.U.” when something stinks? It’s not short for anything—so where did it come from?
Turns out, “P.U.” is actually a misheard version of an old exclamation—“pyoo”—which came from the Latin word “putere” (meaning “to stink”). Somewhere along the way, “pyoo” got written down as “P.U.”, and people assumed it stood for something—kind of like how people think “SOS” means “Save Our Souls” (it doesn’t).
🔍 Sources:
Oxford English Dictionary. “P.U.: Etymology and Historical Usage.”
Ayto, John. Dictionary of Word Origins. Arcade Publishing, 1990.
Barnhart, Robert K. The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology. H.W. Wilson, 1988.
Skeat, Walter W. Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Clarendon Press, 1910.
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