The English word twat is a vulgarism which literally means the vulva or vagina, and is used figuratively as a derogatory epithet. In British English the epithet denotes an obnoxious or stupid person of either sex, whereas in American English it is rarer and usually applied to a woman. In Britain the usual current pronunciation is ; the older pronunciation, still usual in the United States, is, reflected in the former variant spelling twot. The literal sense is first attested in 1656, the epithet in the 1930s. The word's etymology is uncertain. The American Heritage Dictionary suggests a conjectural Old English word *thwāt, "a cut", cognate with Old Norse þveit (thveit). Jonathon Green suggests a connection with twitchel, a dialect term for a narrow passage.
