B**ll*cks

[123everton]

What is the origin of the above word?

[Janie D]

Coming from a NAval Town, the Origins of Todays many swear words originated from the Navy & Naval/Seafarers terminology.
A Bo l l ock is a PUlly block found on the top mast also known as a Boll ock Block! ( or in that region im no expert)you might also be interested to know that the "C" word ( i didnt type it in in case of offence to someone) also originates from a Naval/Seamans KNOT, Known as a "C*nt" splice

[Quizmonster]

Janie, the knot is almost certainly called after the female organ and not vice versa. The word comes from Germanic origins and its very earliest recorded use in English was in the name of a London lane frequented by prostitutes. It was called Grope....Lane for pretty obvious reasons! (The dots represent the missing four letters.)

[nightmare]

"ock" is a diminutive suffix.
Ball-ock is a small ball
Ballock became boll-ock, because of how it is pronounced (borlock).

[worfman]

sorry but there all wrong...
when the sex pistols had there album :never mind the b::ll:cks out: a manager in one of virgin's record shop's displayed the poster in the window, like you do,then a copper with nothing better to do came along and nick him for it.richard bransom paid out a lot of money to research where the meaning of it came from..
it was traced back to a early english word discribingwhat was being said by a preist in church,,,talking a load of b::ll:ck,s

[Baby02]

Not really sure but I say it alot... especially when buses dont turn up or drive right past grrrr

[Quizmonster]

123, in my earlier response, I confined myself to commenting on Janie's reference to the c-word and said nothing about the word you'd actually asked about.
However, I must now point out that Nightmare's answer is the correct one in that respect. The modern version of the word with an 'o' as second letter is just a variant of the much older word which had an 'a' in that position. That a-word has been in use for 1,000 years to mean a 'testicle'.
There is, believe me, no connection between pulley-blocks on old sailing ships and male genitalia. Yes, there were such blocks with that name but they had nothing whatsoever to do with the word you asked about.
Nightmare is the one who should have the three stars!

[nightmare]

Thanks for the recognition , Quizmonster