Reply #7: Its origins are Anglo-Saxon... [View All]

it was, basically, the Anglo-Saxon word for the female genitalia. It's in Chaucer (as "queinte", in "The Miller's Tale"), and it was part of a street name c. 13th century ("Gropecunte Lane", the centre of prostitution in medieval London).

And the reason it's considered obscene and taboo is the same reason a lot of other perfectly good Anglo-Saxon words are considered obscene and taboo (cf. fuck, shit, piss, etc.)...they are "vulgar" (that is, common). The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought a new ruling and upper class to England, who spoke Norman French, derived from Latin, and so first French and later Latinate equivalents of the Anglo-Saxon words (copulate, defecate, urinate, etc.) were the "acceptable" ones.