The story
- French · derived frompuer“to stink”
- Spanish · derived fromfu
- English todayP U
Originally single-syllable (variably pue, peuh, peugh, pyoo, pew). Compare pooh and ew. Perhaps influenced by Spanish fu, an interjection indicating disgust, or French puer (“to stink”).
Words from the same roots
Frenchpuer all →
poohpuer
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.