Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several hoofed mammals of the genus Equus, resembling and closely related to the horses but having a smaller build and longer ears, and including the domesticated donkey.
  • noun A foolish or stupid person.
  • noun The buttocks.
  • noun The anus.
  • noun Sexual intercourse.
  • adjective Used in combination with adjectives as an intensive.
  • idiom (have (one's) head up (one's) ass) To behave in an ignorant or foolish manner.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Ashes.
  • noun A solidungulate quadruped of the family Equidœ, the Equus asinus.
  • noun Any wild species of the subgenus Asinus, as the dziggetai or hemione, onager, etc.
  • noun A dull, heavy, stupid fellow; a dolt; a fool; a blockhead.
  • noun A post in the bridge of a pulp-vat on which the mold is placed to drain.
  • noun A unit of weight in use in different parts of Germany until the adoption of the metric system. It was equal to 5 centigrams, or three quarters of a grain troy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A quadruped of the genus Equus (Equus asinus), smaller than the horse, and having a peculiarly harsh bray and long ears. The tame or domestic ass is patient, slow, and sure-footed, and has become the type of obstinacy and stupidity. There are several species of wild asses which are swift-footed.
  • noun A dull, heavy, stupid fellow; a dolt.
  • noun [Sportive] The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, “The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another.”
  • noun to do or say something very foolish or absurd.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several species of horse-like animals, especially Equus africanus, often domesticated and used a beast of burden.
  • noun slang A stupid person.
  • noun vulgar, slang Buttocks.
  • noun vulgar, slang, uncountable Sex.
  • noun vulgar, slang Anus.
  • noun slang Used in similes to express something bad or unpleasant.
  • noun slang Used after an adjective to indicate extremes or excessiveness.
  • noun slang One's self or person, chiefly their body.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun hardy and sure-footed animal smaller and with longer ears than the horse
  • noun a pompous fool
  • noun the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on
  • noun slang for sexual intercourse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English asse, from Old English assa, perhaps of Celtic origin, ultimately from Latin asinus.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English ars, from Old English ears; see ors- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English as, ass, asse, from Old English assa ("male donkey") and assen ("female donkey"), from probable hypocoristic form of Old Irish asan, which entered the language through the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. The earlier form, from Proto-Germanic *asiluz (“ass, donkey”) appeared as Old English eosol ("ass, donkey") (compare Old High German esil ("ass, donkey"), Old Saxon esil ("ass, donkey"), Gothic  (asilus, "ass, donkey")).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Used chiefly in North America. From arse (used in the UK, Australia, New Zealand etc.) based on non-rhotic pronunciation (common in both England and US colonies – see bass, bust, and cuss), from Proto-Germanic} *arsaz. Cognates include the Old High German ars (German Arsch), Old Norse ars, Old Frisian ers and Ancient Greek ὄρρος (orros). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃érsos (“backside, buttocks, butt”).

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Examples

Comments

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  • "It's embarrassing as fuck to have an ass!" - Tourette's Guy

    July 30, 2008

  • "n. A post in the bridge of a pulp-vat on which the mold is placed to drain."

    -- from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

    September 14, 2015