Where did saying a guy was "hot" originate? - Big Questions (Ep. 16)

Hi, I'm Josh Sunquist, and this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Today I'm going to answer Cat Three Crazes big question, Where did saying a guy was hot originate

Well, Kat, I'm going to assume that you mean this guy is good looking, not feverish

And I think you'll be surprised to learn that this term is pretty old, like 700 years old

Let's get started. Since you asked where the term originated, I should probably note that the English word

HOT evolved from a similar Old English term, which was borrowed from the Germanic languages

But back then, the word was simply referring to heat. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was during the 1300s that the English

word hot started being associated with lustfulness or desire. So the word didn't mean attractive yet, but the word had shifted from referring to temperature

referring to lust. This was a crucial change in the words meaning. It brought the word

hot one small step away from the definition that we know and love today. An example

of this can be seen in the prologue of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. We know Chaucer

wrote the phrase, hot he was and letcherous as a sparrow during the late 1300s

Another example appears in Merlin or the early history of King Arthur, which was written between

in 1450 and 1460. The text describes a character as the most hottest woman of all Bhutan and most luxurious That sounds more similar to how we use the word hottest today but it probably still meant

lustful in this context. Usage of the word persisted through history. Like, I'm sure everyone remembers the beautiful and eloquent quote from Shakespeare's

Othello, were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys? Moving on, the Oxford English Dictionary cites 1926 as the year Hot officially became a

slang word meaning attractive. Now I used the term officially because the slang was probably

already being used, but this is the first time the word hot appeared meaning attractive

in print. What was the context? The New Republic magazine ran an article that claimed

Aphrodite, more widely known as Venus, was the Hot Mama of Goddesses

So there's your background on the evolution of the term. Kat does specifically mention

guys in her question though. From where guys are first referred to as hot, the Oxford English

dictionary cites James Robert Baker's 1985 book adrenaline. Under the pseudonym James Dillinger

Baker wrote, There's always just jillions of hot young guys around. Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube

which is made with the help of all these nice people. Again, I'm Josh Sunquist. For more information about hotness and romance

check out my new memoir, We Should Hang Out Some Time. Click on the link below to go to

we should hangout sometime.com for more information. If you have a big question of your own

that you'd like answered, leave it below in the comments. See you next week