Weltarsch

The first six panels of today's SMBC:

And the last two:

The mouse-over title: "It's a beautiful-ass concept."

The aftercomic:

Interestingly, the Wiktionary entry lists the literal meaning in third place, presumably because current frequency of use is the ordering principle?

In contrast, the OED puts the literal meaning first, since it orders senses by age —

to attack or harm (a person) physically, esp. in order to punish or subdue; to beat up. Hence: to defeat or humiliate; to exhaust or tire out.

…with citations back to 1741:

1741    Yes (says he) you are a d——d, impudent, stinking, cursed, confounded Jade, and I have a great mind to kick your A——.       (H. Fielding, Shamela vi. 13) 1855    I don't care a damn; if the adjutant comes near me I'll kick his arse.       (Allen's Indian Mail 29 January 41/1)

The metaphorical sense "to act roughly or aggressively; to be powerful or assertive" is only traced back to 1977, and is not distinguished from the (even more abstract) sense that Wiktionary glosses as "To be very impressive".

Following up on the "beautiful-ass" modifier in the mouse-over title:

"New intensifiers", 8/16/2004 "The intensified crack of dawn", 6/7/2005 "Is is a prosodic-ass constraint?", 8/25/2011 "Can "[adjective]-ass" occur predicatively?", 11/18/2013 "Ignoble-ass citation practices", 11/12/2014 "A productive-ass suffix", 1/29/2018 "Compound intensifier of the week", 10/20/2024