fart

I fart with twenty ladies by; / They call me beast; and what care I?

1728, Jonathan Swift, A Dialogue between Mad Mullinix and Timothy:

(informal, impolite, intransitive) To emit digestive gases from the anus; to flatulate.

(informal, impolite, intransitive, usually as "fart around") To waste time with idle and inconsequential tasks; to go about one's activities in a lackadaisical manner; to be lazy or over-relaxed in one's manner or bearing.

Above his head the funnel farted black soot into the sky.

1988, Peter Carey, chapter 95, in Oscar and Lucinda, London: Faber and Faber, published 1989, page 457:

We’ve been stuck behind a Ford Escort farting black smoke for ten minutes.

2014, Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings, New York: Riverhead Books, page 139:

(figuratively, transitive) To emit (fumes, gases, etc.).

en-verb

fart (third-person singular simple present farts, present participle farting, simple past and past participle farted)

farts (present singular third-person)
farting (participle present)
farted (participle past)
farted (past)

From Middle English ferten, farten, from Old English feortan, from Proto-Germanic *fertaną, from Proto-Indo-European *perd-.
The noun is from Middle English fert, fart, from the verb.


fart

I think I heard a fart. Was it you, Nigel?

Silent farts are often the smelliest.

Metrocles somewhat indiscreetly, as he was disputing in his Schole, in presence of his auditory, let a fart, for shame whereof he afterwards kept his house and could not be drawen abroad[…].

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

(informal, impolite) An emission of digestive gases from the anus; a flatus.

(colloquial, impolite, derogatory) An irritating person; a fool.

(colloquial, impolite, derogatory, potentially offensive) (usually as "old fart") An elderly person; especially one perceived to hold old-fashioned views.

(Maine) One who is inflexibly meticulous.