> When used alone, "ass" to me feels like it's roughly synonymous as when it's prefixed with "dumb", which would seem to relate to that old meaning of "jerk", b

> When used alone, "ass" to me feels like it's roughly synonymous as when it's prefixed with "dumb", which would seem to relate to that old meaning of "jerk", but with "hole" on the end, it's equivalent to the modern version of "jerk". Could be because the original "ass = stupid" is possibly related not to ass = arse, but to ass = donkey? "Donkey-hole", OTOH, is meaningless, so "asshole" rather definitely means "arsehole".