In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions, he mentions on page 22 that the word beaver was used as a code word by news photographers to signify that a woman’s skirt could be seen up from a certain angle. However, the origins of this claim are uncertain and no concrete sources can be found to support it. The term beaver as a euphemism for “vagina” dates back to British slang in the 1910s, originally referring to a man’s beard and later expanding to include female genitalia by 1927. The association with beaver pelts due to their resemblance to facial hair led to the adoption of the term. The word beaver itself traces back to Old English beofor, which comes from the Proto-Indo-European root bher meaning “bright” or “brown”. The usage of beaver peaked in the 1850s, contradicting Vonnegut’s definition.
