Etymology: Jizz (It’s about Birds)

The other night, I went to my friend’s house to hang out. She is very into birds, and the first thing she told me when we sat at the kitchen table was that the things that are obvious identifiers of bird species, like a cardinal being red, is called “jizz.” This is my kind of fact. She’s a good friend.

I could not let that fact go, so I looked into its etymology. She had thought it was a very old term, but it turns out it’s only been around for about century. The Oxford English Dictionary has it as “the characteristic impression given by an animal or plant,” which is basically what she had said. However, the first usage entry is from Bird Haunts & Nature Memories by T. A. Coward published in 1922. Here is the entry, because it’s delightful and you’ll probably want it as a tattoo that spirals around your biceps, maybe with a picture of a cardinal:

Jizz, of course, is not confined to birds. The small mammal and the plant alike have jizz.

The etymology of this term is unknown, according to the OED.

There is, as I am sure you are aware, a second definition.

This one is older, with a first usage in 1842. The OED notes that it is US slang for jism, providing an ocean’s worth of distance from something so distasteful. As a definition, the dictionary provides “energy, strength,” which puts one in mind of the “precious bodily fluids” from Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

As a synonym for sperm, jizz is “often regarded as a taboo-word.” The first use in this sense, according to the OED, was in 1899, where it was spelled “chism” or “chissum,” which somehow makes it worse. After that comes a list of usages that will surprise no one: Burroughs, Updike, Roth, and the magazine Screw. Men of the mid-twentieth century were really into this word, and they were not birders.

Merriam-Webster Unabridged does not have the birding definition at all, confirming the OED’s conclusion that Americans are filthy slang users. M-W also has no idea where this word came from, and it limits its definition to a single word: “semen.” It’s plain that M-W would also rather have nothing to do with this word. I wonder how many etymologists are happy to let the origins of jizz remain a mystery rather than having to read the materials where the word is used. I get it; I am feeling the same way at this point in this short essay.

You might be wondering why my friend would tell me about birds having jizz, other than it being an amazing fact. Well, we do have a history with jizz in its non-taboo-word forms. Did you know, dear reader, that in the 1977 movie Star Wars, the band in the cantina on Tatooine is playing jizz music? This is a fact SW nerds hold close to their hearts, but the origin of the term is surprisingly shaky. I had heard that George Lucas named it that in the early days, but reasonably reputable sources on the internet give varying origin stories. The earliest usage I saw mentioned was a novelization of Return of the Jedi in the 1980s, which seems likely enough. It was definitely before a novelization published in 2017, which was another potential source I saw named.

The important thing to remember is that jizz is not confined to birds. Anyone can have jizz!

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