Strumpets and ninnycocks. A short guide to Elizabethan insults.

In Elizabethan England, words counted. Particularly the most insulting, offensive and hurtful words. Words like ninnycock, rotten hornibus, jackanapes and (whisper it) ninnyhammer.

A painstakingly detailed new study of the records of English slander trials from the 16th and 17th centuries has uncovered an incredibly rich vocabulary of lost British insults. Todd Gray of the University of Exeter studied more than 40,000 ancient court documents to rediscover the abusive language used by real people.

His book, "Strumpets and Ninnycocks: Name Calling in Devon, 1540-1640," also reveals much about the society of the time, he says.

For example, Gray found no records of women being insulted for stupidity — but not, he argues, because of a greater respect for female intelligence. Instead, it reflects the then notion that intelligence was not considered a desirable trait in women.

"They assumed women were not very intelligent," Gray says. "This is really a sign of the society being misogynistic."

Many of the insults aimed at men focus on the shame of being cheated on by a wife or lover — being a cuckold. The many insults based on this idea includes rotten hornibus (rotten meaning old), and cucumber — because of its resemblance to male genitalia. One trial includes the sentence: "Thou art a cuckold, a long-legged cuckold, and thy wife is a hackney whore."

The word whore is also by far the most common insult aimed at women, but could be qualified with more than 200 adjectives, including platter-face, bald, scurvy-mouthed, beetle-browed, poxy, copper-nosed or fat-arsed.

And a ninnyhammer? That, according to Gray, is "a man whose wife is unfaithful, and he's foolish with it. He doesn't realize his wife is running around behind his back."

And then there are the scatological insults, which Gray says were often directed at figures of authority.

"S–t is there all the time," Gray says. "The word turd is also very common. But the one they really liked was the word fart. 'I don't care a fart for you.' 'Bring the mayor to me and I will fart in his mouth.'"