Other forms: farting, farts, farted
To fart is to let wind out from the bowels. He farted, farting noisily, a fart.
It is a plain everyday word that is mildly rude — acceptable among friends and family and not in formal writing, where flatulence and break wind do the work. Fart about and fart around are British informal for wasting time. An old fart is an affectionate or hostile insult for somebody set in their ways. Note that the word is one of the oldest in English and has never once been polite.
1verbfartTo let wind out from the bowels.
“The dog farted and left the room, which was fair.”
2nounescapeAn escape of wind from the bowels.
“Someone let out a loud fart during the silent prayer, and the children giggled.”
fart is a release of gas.
Old English feortan descends from a Proto-Indo-European root that also gives the equivalent verb in Sanskrit, Greek and Russian. It is one of the small number of words reconstructible right back across the whole family, which says something about human priorities.
Proto-Indo-European
*perd-
Proto-Germanic
*fertaną
Proto-West Germanic
*fertan
Old English
*feortan
Middle English
ferten
English, today
fart
From Middle English ferten, farten, from Old English feortan, from Proto-West Germanic fertan, from Proto-Germanic fertaną, from Proto-Indo-European perd-. The noun is from Middle English fert, fart, from the verb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA