Latin profanity
Encyclopedia
Latin profanity is the profane
, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin
, and its uses. The profane vocabulary of early Vulgar Latin
was largely sex
ual and scatological
: the abundance of religious
profanity found in some of the Romance languages
is a Christian
development, and as such does not appear in Classical Latin
. In Vulgar Latin, words that were considered to be profanity were described generally as obsc(a)ena, "obscene, lewd", unfit for public use; or improba, "improper, in poor taste, undignified". (Note that the name "Vulgar Latin" simply referred to the common speech, not necessarily profanity, although Vulgar Latin was the form of Latin in which sexual and scatological expletives existed. In the more formal Classical Latin, no profanity is recorded except in satirical works, or in discussion of the actual words.)
Since profanity, by definition, consists of spoken words that people use very informally, it is worthwhile to note the sources of Latin profanity. Knowledge of Latin profanity and obscenities comes from a number of sources:
. Its status as a basic obscenity is confirmed by the Priapeia
28, in which mentula and cunnus are given as ideal examples of obscene words:
Verpa is also a basic Latin obscenity for "penis". It appears less frequently in Classical Latin, but it does appear in Catullus 47:
Verpus, adjective and noun, referred to a man whose glans
was exposed, either by an erection
or by circumcision
; thus Juvenal
has
of mēns, (gen. mentis, the "mind" (i.e.; "the little mind"). Mentum is the chin
. Cicero's letter 9:22 ad Familiares relates it to menta, a spearmint
stalk. Tucker's Etymological Dictionary of Latin relates it to ēminēre, "to project outwards", and mōns, "a mountain", all of which suggest an Indo-European *men-.
Verpa probably relates to something "thrust" or "thrown"; compare Dutch
werpen, Danish
verfe, Icelandic
verpa, and Old English
weorpan (the root of English warp), all meaning "to throw".
for Mamurra
, and uses it as an ordinary name, as in his epigram 105:
". Cicero's ad Familiares, 9.22, observes that pēnis originally was an innocuous word, but that the meaning of male sexual organ had become primary by his day. Once it acquired its sexual sense, this sense tarred the word and made it unusable for anything other than the sexual sense; thus pēnis became the standard medical and scientific jargon word.
The obscure word sōpiō (gen.
sōpiōnis) seemed to mean a sexualized caricature with an abnormally large penis, such as the Romans were known to draw. It appears in Catullus 37: frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam ("I will draw sopios on the front of the tavern") and in graffiti from Pompeii: ut merdas edatis, qui scripseras sopionis ("whoever drew sopios, let him eat shit!'") The grammarian Sacerdos preserves a quotation about Pompey
, that says quem non pudet et rubet, non est homo, sed sopio ("whoever is not ashamed and blushes is not a man, but a sopio.") Sōpiō would appear to describe drawings such as that of the god Mercury in the illustration.
The word pipinna seems to have been children's slang for the penis; compare English
pee-pee. It appears in Martial 11.71:
The verb arrigō, arrigere meant "to have an erection". Suetonius
's Lives of the Twelve Caesars
, Augustus
69, contains the line:
minca. Minga also exists in Spanish
. Verpa is preserved in some Romance dialects, usually with another meaning; verpile is a sort of stirrup and spur in a Calabria
n dialect, possibly named for its shape. Most Romance languages have adopted metaphorical euphemisms as the chief words for the penis; as in Mexican Spanish
and Argentine Spanish verga, obscene for penis, and in Romanian
vargă (although pulă is far more common), Catalan
, Italian
, Spanish
and Portuguese
verga, French
verge, from Latin virga, "staff".
s in Latin was cōleī (singular: cōleus). It had an alternative, consonant-stem form cōleōnēs (singular: cōleō), in later Latin sometimes culiō, culiōnēs, that is sparsely attested in Classical Latin; this, however, is the productive word in Romance.
in a wineskin; his description of them as honesti indicates that the word was acceptable in "decent" company.
On the other hand, a Pompeian graffito quotes what may have been a folk saying: seni supino colei culum tegunt: "when an old man lies down, his testicles cover his butthole." This may have been a proverb
, and constitutes ribald humour
; it does not demonstrate that the word was considered particularly obscene.
coglioni, French
couilles, couillons; Portuguese
colhões, Galician
collóns, collois, collós, Catalan
collons, Sardinian
cozzones, Romanian coi, coaie, Spanish
cojones
(now a loanword
in English
).
. The Priapeia mention it in connection with mentula, above.
with Persian kun "anus" and kos "vulva", and with Greek
(kusthos). Tucker relates it to Indo-European *kut-nos, which suggests a word meaning "split" (cf. English crack). The Indo-European origin of this word is supported by the fact that it appears in the Slavic languages, as in the Czech kunda also Persian gosha "splitting" and kos "vulva".
Eric Partridge
's Origins, by contrast, relates it to a reconstructed IE *kuzdhos, and also calls attention to the Hittite
kun, "tail", and suggests cognates among the Afro-Asiatic languages
.
Because the /m/ of cum assimilates to the /n/ of nobis, and because the accent
was weaker in Latin than in English, cum nobis (although stressed on the middle syllable) sounds very similar to cunno bis (stressed on the first syllable), meaning "in/from/with a cunt twice".
The word cunnilingus
also occurs in literary Latin, and is found once in Catullus and more frequently in Martial; it denotes the person who performs the action, not the action itself as in modern English, where it is not obscene but technical. Cunnilingus, in English, is the act of using the mouth and tongue to stimulate the female genitals, particularly the clitoris, the most sensitive part of the female genitalia. The term comes from the Latin word for the vulva (cunnus) and the verb "to lick" (linguere, cf. lingua "tongue").
Horace
's Sermones I.2 and I.3 use the word:
which attributes, metaphorically (or more accurately through synecdoche
), the cause of the Trojan War
to Helen of Troy's vulva.
The modern scientific or polite words vulva and vagina both stem from Latin, but originally they had different meanings. The word vagina
is the Latin word for scabbard or sword-sheath.
Vulva (or volva) signifed the uterus
. The meanings of vagina and vulva have changed by means of metaphor
and metonymy
, respectively.
cona, Portuguese
cona, (South) Sardinian
cunnu, Old Italian
cunna. In Calabrian dialects the forms cunnu (m.) and cunna (f.) are used as synonyms of "stupid, dumb". In Portuguese it has been transferred to the feminine gender
; the form cunna is also attested in Pompeian graffiti and in some late Latin texts.
, and their native word for it was landīca. This appears to have been one of the most obscene words in the entire Latin lexicon. It is alluded to, but does not appear, in literary sources, except in the Priapeia 79, which calls it misella landica, the "poor little clitoris". It does, however, appear in graffiti.
ning, and there hints at the word landīca by quoting an unintentionally obscene utterance made in the senate:
The word landīca is found in Roman graffiti: ("I seek Fulvia's clitoris") appears on a leaden projectile found at Perugia
, while a derivative word is found in Pompeii: ; it is not clear here whether landicosa meant that Eupla had an unusually strong libido
or a large clitoris. A large clitoris was an object of horror and fascination to the ancient Romans; Martial's epigram I.90 alludes to a woman who uses her clitoris as a penis in a lesbian
encounter (http://www.barefootmuse.com/archives/issue7/salemi2.htm)
of Indo-European kel-, which describes a covering; compare Latin celare, "to conceal." This etymology is problematic, though, and Adams says that its origin is obscure.
. Martial 11.21 speaks of a cūlus aēnī, "the bronze asshole", as on a statue.
was the name for the posterior opening of the digestive tract; the word is not specific to that usage, but instead originally meant "ring
". Its anatomical sense drove out its other meanings, and for this reason the diminutive annulus became the usual Latin name for a ring or circle.
A curious example of the usage of "ring" as a metaphor being kept (or most likely, having resurfaced) in a modern Romance language can be found in Brazilian Portuguese
slang, as the word anel can have the same double meaning, especially in the expression o anel de couro (the leather ring). "Ring" is also British slang for "anus".
čol, in Sardinian culu, in Portuguese cu and in Galician cú. Its offensiveness varies from one language to another; in French it was incorporated into ordinary words and expressions such as culottes
, "breeches
", and cul-de-sac.
.
Mist (dung), Russian "смердеть" ("to stink") and Polish
śmierdzieć ( "to stink").
contexts, meaning "manure". Cato the Elder
uses it, as well as stercus, while the Mulomedicina Chironis speaks of merda bubula, "cattle manure". But Martial 3.17 uses it in its typical metaphorical sense, speaking of inedible cooking:
, as in its well known translation of Psalm 113:7:
Futuō, infinitive
futuere, perfect futuī, past participle futūtum, Latin for "to copulate", is richly attested and useful. Not only the word itself, but also derived words such as perfututum, which could be translated "totally fucked", and dēfutūta, "fucked out, exhausted from intercourse", are attested in Classical Latin literature. The derived noun futūtiō, "act of intercourse", also exists in Classical Latin, and the nomen agentis futūtor, corresponding to the English epithet "fucker", also derives from that word.
Futuō, unlike "fuck", was more frequently used in erotic and celebratory senses rather than derogatory ones or insults. A woman of Pompeii wrote the graffito fututa sum hic ("I got laid here") and prostitutes
, canny at marketing
, appear to have written other graffiti complimenting their customers for their sexual prowess: Felix bene futuis ("Lucky boy, you have fucked well"); Victor bene valeas qui bene futuis ("Victorious, best wishes to one who has fucked well"), with futuis corresponding to classical futuisti. It is famously used erotically in Catullus 32:
Futuō in its active voice
was used of women only when it was imagined that they were taking the active role thought appropriate to the male partner by the Romans. The woman in Martial VII:
is described as a tribas
, a lesbian.
" and "to force fellatio", respectively, which were used with famous hostility in Catullus 16
:
Pēdīcāre is often thought to be a Greek loanword in Latin (from the noun (paidika) "boyfriend"), but the long "i" is an obstacle. Other more neutral synonyms for futuō in Latin include coeō, coīre, literally "to go with," whence Latin and English coitus.
Note: Irrumāre, which in English is denoted by the passive construction "to be sucked", is an active verb in Latin, since the irrumator was considered to be the active partner, the fellator the passive. Irrumātiō is the counterpart of fellatio; in Roman terms, which are the opposite way round to modern conceptions, the giver of oral sex
inserts his penis into the mouth of the receiver.
Unlike most of the vocabulary of homosexuality in Latin (paedicāre, pathicus, cinaedus), cēveō seems not to be of Greek origin. Francis A. Wood relates it to an Indo-European root *kweu- or *qeu-, relating to a variety of back and forth motions.
Crīsāre may relate to Indo-European *(s)kreit-, *(s)ker-, "to twist, turn, or bend".
. Martial 3.95 contains the phrase "sed pulchre, Naevole, ceves." ("But you wiggle your arse so prettily, Naevolus.") On the other hand crīsō appears to have had a similar meaning, but to have been used of the female. Again Martial 10.68:
.
pappe kak, "diarrhea
". It exists in Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian (cacca), Hebrew, Hungarian, Romanian, German, British English and French as well, caca being childish slang for excrement (similar to American English "poop"), a word whose level of obscene loading varies from country to country.
Catullus 36 contains the lines:
until later.)
in French, Catalan, Romanian (besides căcat) and Spanish childhood slang, while Portuguese and Romanian use the very same word with the general meaning of anything that looks or smells malodorous or reminiscent of excrement.) German kacken, Dutch kakken, Czech kakat, Lithuanian kakoti, Russian какать (kakat), Icelandic kúka, Bosnian kakiti etc. are all slang words meaning "to defecate", most of them having roughly the same level of severity as the English expression "take a dump".
.
perfect stem. It is cognate with Greek (perdomai), English fart, Bulgarian prdi, Polish pierdzieć, Russian пердеть (perdet), Sanskrit
pardate, and Avestan pərəδaiti, all of which mean the same thing.
. In the Sermones 1.8, 46, Horace writes:
The English word petard, found mostly in the cliché "hoist with his own petard", comes from an early explosive device whose noise was likened to the sound of breaking wind. English also has petomania for a performance of musical farting, and petomane for the performer, after Le Pétomane
, a French performer active in the early 20th century.
." The two verbs share a perfect mixī or mīnxī, and a past participle mictum or minctum. It is likely that mingō represents a variant conjugation of meiō with a nasal infix
.
In Classical Latin, the form mingō was more common than meiō. In some Late Latin
texts a variant first conjugation form meiāre is attested. This is the form that is productive in Romance.
The Classical Latin word micturīre became the accepted medical word meaning "to urinate". It is the source of the English medical term "micturition reflex".
in water for brewing
). Sanskrit has mehati, "it urinates"; Persian miz, "urine"; Russian (mocha), "he/she urinates" and (mokri), "he/she wets/urinates"; Greek (omeikhein), "to urinate"; Polish miazga, "sap".
, collected urine as a source of ammonia
to use in laundering
clothes.
Also, Egnatius, a Celtiberian who washes his teeth with urine, is the subject of one of Catullus's poems. The word ūrīna, of course, is also attested in Latin, and became the usual polite term. The relationship with the Greek verb (oureō), "to urinate", is not clear.
, and appears elsewhere in the Romance territory, as in French pisser, Catalan pixar, Italian pisciare and Romanian a (se) pişa.
seems euphemistic
and metaphor
ical.
The most unambiguous Latin word for "to prostitute oneself" is scortor, scortārī, which occurs chiefly in Plautus
. This word may relate to Latin scorteus, "made of leather
or hide", much as English refers to the skin trade; or it may be a pure pejorative related to Greek , "shit". Plautus illustrates its use in Amphitryon (play)
:
Prostitutes were called meretrīx, "earner", and lupa, "she-wolf"; a brothel
was a lupānar; these words referred to the mercantile and perceived predatory activities of prostitutes. The Latin word prōstituō had a root meaning of "to expose for public sale." The word glūbō, glūbere, glūpsī, glūptus meant "to peel", and by extension, "to rob"; it was often used of prostitutes; compare English she took him to the cleaners.
The important and productive words for a prostitute, *puta or *putāna, are not attested in Classical Latin, despite their many Romance derivatives: French putain and pute, Italian puttana, Spanish (and Filipino), Catalan, Portuguese and Galician puta. Under French linguists point of view, they seem to relate to Latin puteō, putēre, "to stink," and thus to represent yet another metaphor.. Spaniards María Moliner
(author of the famous dictionary of Spanish) and Joan Coromines
think they came from Vulgar Latin putta, femenine form of puttus, superlative (as adjective) form of putus, "pure", "boy". In Portugal, the word puto has the same connotation as "small kid" or "little boy". And in Romanian childhood slang "puţă" means penis or vagina.
/BBC2 original television series Rome
depicts the city with the grit and grime that is often absent from earlier productions, including that of language. But since the actors speak English, Latin profanity is mostly seen in written graffiti
, such as:
However, the character Titus Pullo says "cack!" occasionally when irritated, most likely a derivative of caco above.
Profanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, and its uses. The profane vocabulary of early Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
was largely sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
ual and scatological
Scatology
In medicine and biology, scatology or coprology is the study of feces.Scatological studies allow one to determine a wide range of biological information about a creature, including its diet , healthiness, and diseases such as tapeworms. The word derives from the Greek σκώρ In medicine and biology,...
: the abundance of religious
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
profanity found in some of the Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
is a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
development, and as such does not appear in Classical Latin
Classical Latin
Classical Latin in simplest terms is the socio-linguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it...
. In Vulgar Latin, words that were considered to be profanity were described generally as obsc(a)ena, "obscene, lewd", unfit for public use; or improba, "improper, in poor taste, undignified". (Note that the name "Vulgar Latin" simply referred to the common speech, not necessarily profanity, although Vulgar Latin was the form of Latin in which sexual and scatological expletives existed. In the more formal Classical Latin, no profanity is recorded except in satirical works, or in discussion of the actual words.)
Since profanity, by definition, consists of spoken words that people use very informally, it is worthwhile to note the sources of Latin profanity. Knowledge of Latin profanity and obscenities comes from a number of sources:
- The satiricalSatireSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
poets, particularly CatullusCatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
and MartialMartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, use the words in preserved literary works. HoraceHoraceQuintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
also used them in his earlier poems. The anonymous PriapeiaPriapeiaThe Priapeia is a collection of ninety-five poems in various meters on subjects pertaining to the phallic god Priapus. It was compiled from literary works and inscriptions on images of the god by an unknown editor, who composed the introductory epigram. From their style and versification it is...
is another important literary source. - The orator and lawyer CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's Epistulae ad Familiares ("Letters to My Friends") discuss Latin profanity, and confirm the "profane" or "obscene" status of many of the words. - A number of medicalMedicineMedicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
or especially veterinaryVeterinary medicineVeterinary Medicine is the branch of science that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in non-human animals...
texts use the words as part of their working vocabulary, in which they were not considered obscenity but simply jargon. - Preserved graffitiGraffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
from the Roman period use these words. A rich trove of examples of profane Latin at work was discovered on the walls of PompeiiPompeiiThe city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
and HerculaneumHerculaneumHerculaneum was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in AD 79, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano, in the Italian region of Campania in the shadow of Mt...
.
Mentula and verpa: the penis
Mentula is the basic Latin word for penisPenis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
. Its status as a basic obscenity is confirmed by the Priapeia
Priapeia
The Priapeia is a collection of ninety-five poems in various meters on subjects pertaining to the phallic god Priapus. It was compiled from literary works and inscriptions on images of the god by an unknown editor, who composed the introductory epigram. From their style and versification it is...
28, in which mentula and cunnus are given as ideal examples of obscene words:
- Obscenis, peream, Priape, si non
uti me pudet improbisque verbis
sed cum tu posito deus pudore
ostendas mihi coleos patentes
cum cunno mihi mentula est vocanda- ("I'd rather die than use obscene and improper words; but when you, PriapusPriapusIn Greek mythology, Priapus or Priapos , was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism...
, as a god, appear with your testicles hanging out, it is appropriate for me to speak of cunts and cocks.")
- ("I'd rather die than use obscene and improper words; but when you, Priapus
Verpa is also a basic Latin obscenity for "penis". It appears less frequently in Classical Latin, but it does appear in Catullus 47:
- vos Veraniolo meo et Fabullo
verpus praeposuit Priapus ille?- ("Did that dick, that PriapusPriapusIn Greek mythology, Priapus or Priapos , was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism...
, prefer you to my dear Veraniolus and Fabullus?")
- ("Did that dick, that Priapus
Verpus, adjective and noun, referred to a man whose glans
Glans penis
The glans penis is the sensitive bulbous structure at the distal end of the penis. The glans penis is anatomically homologous to the clitoral glans of the female...
was exposed, either by an erection
Erection
Penile erection is a physiological phenomenon where the penis becomes enlarged and firm. Penile erection is the result of a complex interaction of psychological, neural, vascular and endocrine factors, and is usually, though not exclusively, associated with sexual arousal...
or by circumcision
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
; thus Juvenal
Juvenal
The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...
has
- Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos
- ("To guide only the circumcised [i.e. Jews] to the fountain that they seek").
Etymology
The exact etymology of mentula is somewhat obscure, although outwardly it would appear to be a diminutiveDiminutive
In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
of mēns, (gen. mentis, the "mind" (i.e.; "the little mind"). Mentum is the chin
Chin
In the human anatomy, the chin is the lowermost part of the face.It is formed by the lower front of the mandible.People show a wide variety of chin structures. See Cleft chin....
. Cicero's letter 9:22 ad Familiares relates it to menta, a spearmint
Spearmint
Mentha spicata syn. M. cordifolia is a species of mint native to much of Europe and southwest Asia, though its exact natural range is uncertain due to extensive early cultivation. It grows in wet soils...
stalk. Tucker's Etymological Dictionary of Latin relates it to ēminēre, "to project outwards", and mōns, "a mountain", all of which suggest an Indo-European *men-.
Verpa probably relates to something "thrust" or "thrown"; compare Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
werpen, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
verfe, Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
verpa, and Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
weorpan (the root of English warp), all meaning "to throw".
Usage
Mentula frequently appears in the poetry of Catullus. Catullus uses Mentula as a nicknameNickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
for Mamurra
Mamurra
Mamurra was a Roman military officer who served under Julius Caesar.Mamurra was an equestrian who originally came from the Italian city of Formiae...
, and uses it as an ordinary name, as in his epigram 105:
- Mentula conatur Pipleium scandere montem:
Musae furcillis praecipitem eiciunt.- ("The penis tries to climb the Pipleian mount (of poetry); the MuseMuseThe Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
s drive him out with pitchforks.")
- ("The penis tries to climb the Pipleian mount (of poetry); the Muse
Synonyms and metaphors
The Latin word pēnis itself originally meant "tailTail
The tail is the section at the rear end of an animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals, reptiles, and birds...
". Cicero's ad Familiares, 9.22, observes that pēnis originally was an innocuous word, but that the meaning of male sexual organ had become primary by his day. Once it acquired its sexual sense, this sense tarred the word and made it unusable for anything other than the sexual sense; thus pēnis became the standard medical and scientific jargon word.
The obscure word sōpiō (gen.
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
sōpiōnis) seemed to mean a sexualized caricature with an abnormally large penis, such as the Romans were known to draw. It appears in Catullus 37: frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam ("I will draw sopios on the front of the tavern") and in graffiti from Pompeii: ut merdas edatis, qui scripseras sopionis ("whoever drew sopios, let him eat shit!'") The grammarian Sacerdos preserves a quotation about Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
, that says quem non pudet et rubet, non est homo, sed sopio ("whoever is not ashamed and blushes is not a man, but a sopio.") Sōpiō would appear to describe drawings such as that of the god Mercury in the illustration.
The word pipinna seems to have been children's slang for the penis; compare English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
pee-pee. It appears in Martial 11.71:
- Drauci Natta sui vorat pipinnam,
collatus cui gallus est Priapus.- ("Natta sucks the pee-pee of his athlete. Compared to him, PriapusPriapusIn Greek mythology, Priapus or Priapos , was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism...
is a eunuchEunuchA eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...
.")
- ("Natta sucks the pee-pee of his athlete. Compared to him, Priapus
The verb arrigō, arrigere meant "to have an erection". Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
's Lives of the Twelve Caesars
Lives of the Twelve Caesars
De vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius,...
, Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
69, contains the line:
- An refert, ubi et in qua arrigas?
- ("Does it make any difference to me who made you erect, or when?")
In the Romance languages
Mentula has evolved into Sicilian and Italian minchia and South SardinianSardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
minca. Minga also exists in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. Verpa is preserved in some Romance dialects, usually with another meaning; verpile is a sort of stirrup and spur in a Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
n dialect, possibly named for its shape. Most Romance languages have adopted metaphorical euphemisms as the chief words for the penis; as in Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
and Argentine Spanish verga, obscene for penis, and in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
vargă (although pulă is far more common), Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
verga, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
verge, from Latin virga, "staff".
Cōleī: the testicles
The basic word for the testicleTesticle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
s in Latin was cōleī (singular: cōleus). It had an alternative, consonant-stem form cōleōnēs (singular: cōleō), in later Latin sometimes culiō, culiōnēs, that is sparsely attested in Classical Latin; this, however, is the productive word in Romance.
Etymology
The etymology of cōleī is obscure. Tucker, without explanation, gives *qogh-sleǐ-os (*kwogh-sley-os?), and relates it to cohum, an obscure word for "yoke".Usage
Cōleī does not appear to have been offensive to the degree that words like mentula or futuō were. Cicero's letters refer to the honesti colei Lanuvini; the chaste Lanuvian testicles, which may have been a foodstuff, or perhaps wineWine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
in a wineskin; his description of them as honesti indicates that the word was acceptable in "decent" company.
On the other hand, a Pompeian graffito quotes what may have been a folk saying: seni supino colei culum tegunt: "when an old man lies down, his testicles cover his butthole." This may have been a proverb
Proverb
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
, and constitutes ribald humour
Ribaldry
Ribaldry is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to gross indecency. It is also referred to as "bawdiness", "gaminess" or "bawdry"....
; it does not demonstrate that the word was considered particularly obscene.
Synonyms and metaphors
The primary decent word in Latin for cōleī was testēs (sing. testis). This word may have derived (although the etymology is uncertain) from the plain Latin for "witnesses" (as in English attest, testify, testament and testimony); a man swore an oath upon what he held dearest; or, his testicles were witnesses to his virility. Cicero's letter again says "testes" verbum honestissimum in iudicio, alio loco non nimis. ("In a court of law, witnesses is a quite decent word; not so elsewhere.") The diminutive testiculī was entirely confined to the anatomical sense, and supplied the English word testicles and testicular, as well as its Romance equivalents.In the Romance languages
Cōleōnēs is productive in most of the Romance languages: cf. ItalianItalian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
coglioni, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
couilles, couillons; Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
colhões, Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
collóns, collois, collós, Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
collons, Sardinian
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
cozzones, Romanian coi, coaie, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
cojones
Cojones
Cojones is a vulgar Spanish word for testicles, denoting courage when used in the phrase "tener cojones" . It is considered a curse word when use by itself as an expletive in Spanish...
(now a loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
).
Cunnus: the vulva
Cunnus was the basic Latin word for the vulvaVulva
The vulva consists of the external genital organs of the female mammal. This article deals with the vulva of the human being, although the structures are similar for other mammals....
. The Priapeia mention it in connection with mentula, above.
Etymology
Cunnus has a distinguished Indo-European lineage. It is cognateCognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
with Persian kun "anus" and kos "vulva", and with Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
(kusthos). Tucker relates it to Indo-European *kut-nos, which suggests a word meaning "split" (cf. English crack). The Indo-European origin of this word is supported by the fact that it appears in the Slavic languages, as in the Czech kunda also Persian gosha "splitting" and kos "vulva".
Eric Partridge
Eric Partridge
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...
's Origins, by contrast, relates it to a reconstructed IE *kuzdhos, and also calls attention to the Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
kun, "tail", and suggests cognates among the Afro-Asiatic languages
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
.
Usage
Cicero's letters confirm once again its obscene status. Cicero writes:- . . . cum autem nobis non dicitur, sed nobiscum? quia si ita diceretur, obscaenius concurrerent litterae.
- ("We don't say cum nobis ["with us"], but rather nobiscum; if we said it the other way, the letters would run together in a rather obscene way.")
Because the /m/ of cum assimilates to the /n/ of nobis, and because the accent
Accent
-Speech and language:* Accent , pronunciation characteristic of a certain locality* Accent , of a word* Stress , tone levels and emphasis used in many languages for words or grammar* A diacritical mark is also known as an accent....
was weaker in Latin than in English, cum nobis (although stressed on the middle syllable) sounds very similar to cunno bis (stressed on the first syllable), meaning "in/from/with a cunt twice".
The word cunnilingus
Cunnilingus
Cunnilingus is an oral sex act performed on a female. It involves the use by a sex partner of the mouth, lips and tongue to stimulate the female's clitoris, vulva, or vagina...
also occurs in literary Latin, and is found once in Catullus and more frequently in Martial; it denotes the person who performs the action, not the action itself as in modern English, where it is not obscene but technical. Cunnilingus, in English, is the act of using the mouth and tongue to stimulate the female genitals, particularly the clitoris, the most sensitive part of the female genitalia. The term comes from the Latin word for the vulva (cunnus) and the verb "to lick" (linguere, cf. lingua "tongue").
Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
's Sermones I.2 and I.3 use the word:
- Nam fuit ante Helenam cunnus taeterrima belli
causa. . .
which attributes, metaphorically (or more accurately through synecdoche
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
), the cause of the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
to Helen of Troy's vulva.
Synonyms and metaphors
These include sinus, "indentation", and fossa, "ditch".The modern scientific or polite words vulva and vagina both stem from Latin, but originally they had different meanings. The word vagina
Vagina
The vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
is the Latin word for scabbard or sword-sheath.
Vulva (or volva) signifed the uterus
Uterus
The uterus or womb is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals including humans. One end, the cervix, opens into the vagina, while the other is connected to one or both fallopian tubes, depending on the species...
. The meanings of vagina and vulva have changed by means of metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
and metonymy
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
, respectively.
In the Romance languages
Cunnus is preserved in almost every Romance language: e.g. French con, Catalan cony, Spanish coño, GalicianGalician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
cona, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
cona, (South) Sardinian
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
cunnu, Old Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
cunna. In Calabrian dialects the forms cunnu (m.) and cunna (f.) are used as synonyms of "stupid, dumb". In Portuguese it has been transferred to the feminine gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
; the form cunna is also attested in Pompeian graffiti and in some late Latin texts.
Landīca: the clitoris
The ancient Romans had medical knowledge of the clitorisClitoris
The clitoris is a sexual organ that is present only in female mammals. In humans, the visible button-like portion is located near the anterior junction of the labia minora, above the opening of the urethra and vagina. Unlike the penis, which is homologous to the clitoris, the clitoris does not...
, and their native word for it was landīca. This appears to have been one of the most obscene words in the entire Latin lexicon. It is alluded to, but does not appear, in literary sources, except in the Priapeia 79, which calls it misella landica, the "poor little clitoris". It does, however, appear in graffiti.
Usage
Not even the poets Catullus and Martial, whose frankness is notorious, ever refer to landīca. In a letter to a friend, Cicero discusses which words in Latin are potentially obscene or subject to obscene punPun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
ning, and there hints at the word landīca by quoting an unintentionally obscene utterance made in the senate:
- . . . hanc culpam maiorem an illam dicam?
- "shall I say that this or that was the greater fault?" with illam dicam echoing the forbidden word. Note that the "m" at the end of "illam" was pronounced like "n" before the following "d."
The word landīca is found in Roman graffiti: ("I seek Fulvia's clitoris") appears on a leaden projectile found at Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
, while a derivative word is found in Pompeii: ; it is not clear here whether landicosa meant that Eupla had an unusually strong libido
Libido
Libido refers to a person's sex drive or desire for sexual activity. The desire for sex is an aspect of a person's sexuality, but varies enormously from one person to another, and it also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. A person who has extremely frequent or a suddenly...
or a large clitoris. A large clitoris was an object of horror and fascination to the ancient Romans; Martial's epigram I.90 alludes to a woman who uses her clitoris as a penis in a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
encounter (http://www.barefootmuse.com/archives/issue7/salemi2.htm)
Synonyms and metaphors
Allusions to the clitoris in the Satires of Juvenal call it crista, "crest".In the Romance languages
Landīca survived in Old French landie (extremely rare), and in Romanian lindic.Cūlus: the anus
The basic Latin word for the anus was cūlus. The word was not considered quite as offensive as mentula or cunnus, but does appear in Roman ribaldry. The word is relatively common, and is productive in Romance.Etymology
Cūlus may be an o-gradeIndo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
of Indo-European kel-, which describes a covering; compare Latin celare, "to conceal." This etymology is problematic, though, and Adams says that its origin is obscure.
Usage
Cūlus was applied to the anus of both man and beast; the cūlus of a horse is described in Cato the Elder's De Agri CulturaDe Agri Cultura
De Agri Cultura , written by Cato the Elder, is the oldest surviving work of Latin prose. Alexander Hugh McDonald, in his article for the Oxford Classical Dictionary, dated this essay's composition to about 160 BC and noted that "for all of its lack of form, its details of old custom and...
. Martial 11.21 speaks of a cūlus aēnī, "the bronze asshole", as on a statue.
Synonyms and metaphors
The more seemly Latin word for the buttocks was clūnēs (singular clūnis); this word was generally more decent than cūlus, and older, as well: it has several Indo-European cognates. ĀnusAnus
The anus is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, unwanted semi-solid matter produced during digestion, which, depending on the type of animal, may be one or more of: matter which the animal cannot digest,...
was the name for the posterior opening of the digestive tract; the word is not specific to that usage, but instead originally meant "ring
Circle
A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....
". Its anatomical sense drove out its other meanings, and for this reason the diminutive annulus became the usual Latin name for a ring or circle.
A curious example of the usage of "ring" as a metaphor being kept (or most likely, having resurfaced) in a modern Romance language can be found in Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
slang, as the word anel can have the same double meaning, especially in the expression o anel de couro (the leather ring). "Ring" is also British slang for "anus".
In the Romance languages
Cūlus has been preserved, meaning the buttocks rather than the anus, in most of the Romance languages, except for Portuguese, which kept the original semantics. It yields the forms culo in Spanish and Italian; in French and Catalan it becomes cul, in Romanian cur, in Vegliot DalmatianDalmatian language
Dalmatian was a Romance language spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. The name refers to a pre-Roman tribe of the Illyrian linguistic group, Dalmatae...
čol, in Sardinian culu, in Portuguese cu and in Galician cú. Its offensiveness varies from one language to another; in French it was incorporated into ordinary words and expressions such as culottes
Culottes
Culottes is a word that originated in French. Historically, "culottes" referred to the knee-breeches commonly worn by gentlemen of the European upper-classes from the late Middle Ages or Renaissance through the early nineteenth century. This style of tight pants ending just below the knee was first...
, "breeches
Breeches
Breeches are an item of clothing covering the body from the waist down, with separate coverings for each leg, usually stopping just below the knee, though in some cases reaching to the ankles...
", and cul-de-sac.
Merda: feces
Merda is the basic Latin word for excrement. Frequently used, it appears in most of the Romance languages. Excreta, literally "things expelled", referred most frequently to feces but could describe any bodily excretion. In its modern technical use, excreta is generally used to encompass fecal matter and urineUrine
Urine is a typically sterile liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys through a process called urination and excreted through the urethra. Cellular metabolism generates numerous by-products, many rich in nitrogen, that require elimination from the bloodstream...
.
Etymology
Merda represents Indo-European *s-merd-, whose root sense was likely "something malodorous." It is cognate with GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Mist (dung), Russian "смердеть" ("to stink") and Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
śmierdzieć ( "to stink").
Usage
The word merda is attested in classical texts mostly in veterinary and agriculturalAgriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
contexts, meaning "manure". Cato the Elder
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...
uses it, as well as stercus, while the Mulomedicina Chironis speaks of merda bubula, "cattle manure". But Martial 3.17 uses it in its typical metaphorical sense, speaking of inedible cooking:
- Sed nemo potuit tangere: merda fuit.
- But nobody could touch it: it was shit.
Synonyms and metaphors
The politer terms for merda in Classical Latin were stercus (gen. stercoris), "manure" and fĭmus, "filth." Stercus was used frequently in the VulgateVulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
, as in its well known translation of Psalm 113:7:
- Suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem.
- ("He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill." KJVKing James Version of the BibleThe Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...
)
- ("He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill." KJV
In the Romance languages
Merda is productive in the Romance languages, and is the obvious etymon of French merde, Spanish mierda, Galician merda, Catalan merda and in Vegliot Dalmatian miarda. It is preserved unaltered in Italian, Sardinian and Portuguese. It was preserved in Romanian too, not for feces, where căcat (derived from caco) is used instead, but in the word dezmierda, originally meaning "to clean the bottom of (an infant)"; subsequently becoming "to cuddle" or "to fondle".Futuere: intercourse
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
futuere, perfect futuī, past participle futūtum, Latin for "to copulate", is richly attested and useful. Not only the word itself, but also derived words such as perfututum, which could be translated "totally fucked", and dēfutūta, "fucked out, exhausted from intercourse", are attested in Classical Latin literature. The derived noun futūtiō, "act of intercourse", also exists in Classical Latin, and the nomen agentis futūtor, corresponding to the English epithet "fucker", also derives from that word.
Etymology
Theories are:- Akin to battuere, "to beat"; this metaphor has a long Indo-European heritage. Battuere itself may be a late borrowing from Germanic.
- Tucker's dictionary invites comparison with cōnfūtō, "suppress" or "beat down".
- From *fūtus (4th decl.), a verbal noun from root fu-, Indo-EuropeanIndo-EuropeanIndo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
bhu ("be", "become"), and originally may have referred to intercourse for procreation.
Usage
Futuō is richly attested in all its forms in Latin literature. It is in itself used metaphorically in Catullus 6, which speaks of latera ecfutūta, funds exhausted, literally "fucked away." Catullus 41 speaks of a puella dēfutūta, a girl exhausted from sexual activity; while Catullus 29 similarly speaks of a mentula diffutūta, a penis similarly worn out.Futuō, unlike "fuck", was more frequently used in erotic and celebratory senses rather than derogatory ones or insults. A woman of Pompeii wrote the graffito fututa sum hic ("I got laid here") and prostitutes
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, canny at marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
, appear to have written other graffiti complimenting their customers for their sexual prowess: Felix bene futuis ("Lucky boy, you have fucked well"); Victor bene valeas qui bene futuis ("Victorious, best wishes to one who has fucked well"), with futuis corresponding to classical futuisti. It is famously used erotically in Catullus 32:
- sed domi maneas paresque nobis
novem continuas fututiones.- ("but you remain at home and prepare for us nine acts of fucking, one after the other.")
Futuō in its active voice
Active voice
Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages....
was used of women only when it was imagined that they were taking the active role thought appropriate to the male partner by the Romans. The woman in Martial VII:
- Ipsarum tribadum tribas, Philaeni
recte, quo futuis, vocas amicam
is described as a tribas
Tribadism
Tribadism or tribbing, commonly known by its scissoring position, is a form of non-penetrative sex in which a woman rubs her vulva against her partner's body for sexual stimulation. This may involve female-to-female genital contact or a female rubbing her vulva against her partner's thigh, stomach,...
, a lesbian.
Synonyms and metaphors
The aggressive sense of English "fuck" and "screw" was not strongly attached to futuō in Latin. Instead, these senses attached themselves to pēdīcāre and irrumāre, "to sodomiseSodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
" and "to force fellatio", respectively, which were used with famous hostility in Catullus 16
Catullus 16
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo is the first line, sometimes used as a title, of Carmen 16 in the collected poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus . The poem, written in a hendecasyllabic meter, was considered so explicit that a full English translation was not openly published until the late twentieth...
:
- Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.- ("I will bugger and facefuck you, faggot Aurelius and pervert Furius, because you thought me indecent because my poems are somewhat sissified.")
Pēdīcāre is often thought to be a Greek loanword in Latin (from the noun (paidika) "boyfriend"), but the long "i" is an obstacle. Other more neutral synonyms for futuō in Latin include coeō, coīre, literally "to go with," whence Latin and English coitus.
Note: Irrumāre, which in English is denoted by the passive construction "to be sucked", is an active verb in Latin, since the irrumator was considered to be the active partner, the fellator the passive. Irrumātiō is the counterpart of fellatio; in Roman terms, which are the opposite way round to modern conceptions, the giver of oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
inserts his penis into the mouth of the receiver.
In the Romance languages
Futuō, a core item of the lexicon, lives on in most of the Romance languages, sometimes with its sense somewhat weakened: Catalan fotre, French foutre, Spanish joder, Portuguese foder, Galician foder, Romanian fute (futere), Italian fottere. A famous ribald song in Old Occitan sometimes attributed to the troubadour William IX of Aquitaine reads:- Tant las fotei com auziretz:
Cen e quatre vint et ueit vetz,
Q'a pauc no-i rompei mos corretz
E mos arnes- ("I fucked them as much as you will hear: a hundred and eighty-eight times. I most nearly broke my equipment -- and my tool.")
Cēvēre and crīsāre
Cēveō (cēvēre, cēvī) and crīsō (crīsāre etc.) are basic Latin obscenities that have no exact English equivalents. Crīsō referred to the actions of the female partner in sexual intercourse (i.e. grinding or riding on a penis); as in English, futuō, often translated "fuck", primarily referred to the male action (i.e. thrusting, pounding, slamming). Cēveō referred to the similar activity of the passive partner in anal sex.Etymology
Both of these verbs are of fairly obscure origin.Unlike most of the vocabulary of homosexuality in Latin (paedicāre, pathicus, cinaedus), cēveō seems not to be of Greek origin. Francis A. Wood relates it to an Indo-European root *kweu- or *qeu-, relating to a variety of back and forth motions.
Crīsāre may relate to Indo-European *(s)kreit-, *(s)ker-, "to twist, turn, or bend".
Usage
Cēveō always refers to a male taking the passive role in anal sexAnal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
. Martial 3.95 contains the phrase "sed pulchre, Naevole, ceves." ("But you wiggle your arse so prettily, Naevolus.") On the other hand crīsō appears to have had a similar meaning, but to have been used of the female. Again Martial 10.68:
- Numquid, cum crisas, blandior esse potes?
Tu licet ediscas totam referasque Corinthon,
Non tamen omnino, Laelia, Lais eris.- ("Could you possibly be prettier as you grind? You learn easily, and could do everything they do in CorinthCorinthCorinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
; but you'll never be LaisLais of CorinthLais of Corinth was a famous hetaera or courtesan of ancient Greece who was probably born in Corinth. Another hetaera with the same name was Lais of Hyccara. Since ancient authors in their -usually indirect- accounts often confuse them or do not indicate which they refer to, the two are...
, Laelia.") - Note: Corinth was the site of a major temple of AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
; the temple employed more than a thousand cult prostitutesReligious prostitutionSacred prostitution, temple prostitution, or religious prostitution is a practice of worship that includes hieros gamos or sacred marriage performed as a fertility rite and part of sacred sexual ritual.-Ancient Near East:...
.
- ("Could you possibly be prettier as you grind? You learn easily, and could do everything they do in Corinth
Synonyms and metaphors
These words have few synonyms or metaphors, and belong almost to a sort of technical vocabulary.Cacāre: to defecate
Cacō, cacāre was the chief Latin word for defecationDefecation
Defecation is the final act of digestion by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the anus. Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis in the walls of the colon move fecal matter through the digestive tract towards the rectum...
.
Etymology
The word has a distinguished Indo-European parentage, which may perhaps relate to nursery words or children's slang that tends to recur across many different cultures. It would appear to be cognate with the Greek noun , kopros, meaning "poop." It also exists in Germanic; English "poppiecock" derives from DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
pappe kak, "diarrhea
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...
". It exists in Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian (cacca), Hebrew, Hungarian, Romanian, German, British English and French as well, caca being childish slang for excrement (similar to American English "poop"), a word whose level of obscene loading varies from country to country.
Usage
Catullus 23 contains the lines:- Culus tibi purior salillo est,
nec toto decies cacas in anno.- ("Your arse is purer than the salt-cellar; you probably only take a dump ten times a year.")
Catullus 36 contains the lines:
- Annales Volusi, cacata carta,
- ("Annals of Volusus, letters which have been defecated on,")--i.e. "worthless writings".
Synonyms and metaphors
While cacō, like any other word relating to malodorous bodily functions, is used scurrilously and abusively in Latin literature, the word cacāre in its literal sense may not have been deeply offensive to the Romans (as opposed to e.g. 'cunire'). Few synonyms are attested in Classical Latin; the word dēfēcāre comes much later. (In Classical Latin, faex, plural faecēs, meant the dregs, such as are found in a bottle of wine; the word did not acquire the sense of fecesFeces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
until later.)
In the Romance languages
Cacāre is preserved unaltered in Sardinian and the southern Italian dialects (e.g. Calabrian and the dialects of Basilicata), and with little alteration in Italian (cagare). It becomes Galician, Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese cagar, in Vegliot Dalmatian kakuor, in French chier, and in Romanian as căcare (the act of taking a dump) or a (se) căca. (Feces are referred to as cacaCaca
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Caca is the sister of Cacus, the son of Vulcan who stole cattle from Hercules during the course of his western labors...
in French, Catalan, Romanian (besides căcat) and Spanish childhood slang, while Portuguese and Romanian use the very same word with the general meaning of anything that looks or smells malodorous or reminiscent of excrement.) German kacken, Dutch kakken, Czech kakat, Lithuanian kakoti, Russian какать (kakat), Icelandic kúka, Bosnian kakiti etc. are all slang words meaning "to defecate", most of them having roughly the same level of severity as the English expression "take a dump".
Pēdere: fart
Pēdō, pēdere, pepēdī (or pepidī), pēditum is the basic Latin word for fartFart
Fart is an English language vulgarism most commonly used in reference to flatulence. The word "fart" is generally considered unsuitable in a formal environment by modern English speakers, and it may be considered vulgar or offensive in some situations. Fart can be used as a noun or a verb...
.
Etymology
The word's antiquity and membership in the core inherited vocabulary is made manifest by its reduplicatingReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
perfect stem. It is cognate with Greek (perdomai), English fart, Bulgarian prdi, Polish pierdzieć, Russian пердеть (perdet), Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
pardate, and Avestan pərəδaiti, all of which mean the same thing.
Usage
The word pōdex was synonymous with cūlus, "buttocks" (see above); this o-stem version of the root identified it as the source of flatulenceFlatulence
Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply gas...
. In the Sermones 1.8, 46, Horace writes:
- Nam, displosa sonat quantum vesica, pepedi
diffissa nate ficus. . .- Christopher SmartChristopher SmartChristopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...
translates this passage as “from my cleft bum of fig-tree I let a fart, which made as great an explosion as a burst bladder”. The "I" of this satire is the god PriapusPriapusIn Greek mythology, Priapus or Priapos , was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism...
, and Smart explains that he was made of fig-tree wood which split through being poorly prepared.
- Christopher Smart
Synonyms and metaphors
Pēdō was the core word for the act of farting. The noise made by escaping flatulence was usually called crepitus, vaguely "a noise" or "a creak".In the Romance languages and English
Pēdere and pēditum survive in Romance. In French, the verb péter and the noun pet are quite productive. In Catalan, the verb is petar-se and the noun is pet. In Spanish the noun pedo as well as the verbs peerse and pedorrear are similarly derived. Portuguese peido and peidar(-se), (-dei) and Galician peido and peidar(se) are related. Italian peto is less common than scoreggia and its derived verb scoreggiare.The English word petard, found mostly in the cliché "hoist with his own petard", comes from an early explosive device whose noise was likened to the sound of breaking wind. English also has petomania for a performance of musical farting, and petomane for the performer, after Le Pétomane
Le Pétomane
Le Pétomane was the stage name of the French flatulist and entertainer Joseph Pujol . He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles, which enabled him to seem to fart at will. His stage name combines the French verb péter, "to fart" with the -mane, "-maniac" suffix, which...
, a French performer active in the early 20th century.
Mingere and meiere: urination
Mingō (infinitive mingere) and meiō (infinitive meiere) are two variant forms of what is likely a single Latin verb meaning "to urinate", or in more vulgar usage, "to take a pissUrination
Urination, also known as micturition, voiding, peeing, weeing, pissing, and more rarely, emiction, is the ejection of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. In healthy humans the process of urination is under voluntary control...
." The two verbs share a perfect mixī or mīnxī, and a past participle mictum or minctum. It is likely that mingō represents a variant conjugation of meiō with a nasal infix
Nasal infix
The nasal infix is a reconstructed nasal consonant or syllable that was inserted into the stem of a word in the Proto-Indo-European language, that has reflexes in several modern European languages...
.
In Classical Latin, the form mingō was more common than meiō. In some Late Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
texts a variant first conjugation form meiāre is attested. This is the form that is productive in Romance.
The Classical Latin word micturīre became the accepted medical word meaning "to urinate". It is the source of the English medical term "micturition reflex".
Etymology
Meiere is an inherited Indo-European word. It likely relates to Indo-European *meigh-, "to sprinkle" or "to wet"; compare Old English miscian, "to mix", or Modern English "mash" (infusion of maltMalt
Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as "malting". The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air...
in water for brewing
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...
). Sanskrit has mehati, "it urinates"; Persian miz, "urine"; Russian (mocha), "he/she urinates" and (mokri), "he/she wets/urinates"; Greek (omeikhein), "to urinate"; Polish miazga, "sap".
Usage
Martial's epigram 3.78 uses meiere and ūrīna to make a mixed language pun:- Minxisti currente semel, Pauline, carina.
Meiere vis iterum? Iam Palinurus eris.- ("Once you pissed off the side of a boat, Paulinus. Do you want to piss again? then you will be PalinurusPalinurusPalinurus, in Roman mythology, is the helmsman of a ship of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose descendants would one day found the city of Rome. As the price for the safe passage of Aeneas and his people from Sicily to Italy, Palinurus loses his life, one on behalf of many Palinurus, in Roman mythology,...
.")- (Note that palin is a Greek root meaning "once again." Palinurus was AeneasAeneasAeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
's navigator who was thrown overboard in the AeneidAeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
.)
- (Note that palin is a Greek root meaning "once again." Palinurus was Aeneas
- ("Once you pissed off the side of a boat, Paulinus. Do you want to piss again? then you will be Palinurus
Synonyms and metaphors
The basic Latin noun for "urine" was lōtium. This word relates to lavāre, "to wash". The Romans, innocent of soapSoap
In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...
, collected urine as a source of ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
to use in laundering
Laundry
Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
clothes.
Also, Egnatius, a Celtiberian who washes his teeth with urine, is the subject of one of Catullus's poems. The word ūrīna, of course, is also attested in Latin, and became the usual polite term. The relationship with the Greek verb (oureō), "to urinate", is not clear.
In the Romance languages
Though mingō represents the most common Classical Latin form, meiāre seems to have been the popular form. This underlies Galician mexar, Portuguese mijar and Spanish mear. *Pissare represents a borrowing from the Germanic languagesGermanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, and appears elsewhere in the Romance territory, as in French pisser, Catalan pixar, Italian pisciare and Romanian a (se) pişa.
Latin words relating to prostitution
Compared to the anatomical frankness of the Roman vocabulary about sexual acts and body parts, the Roman vocabulary relating to prostitutionProstitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
seems euphemistic
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
and metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ical.
The most unambiguous Latin word for "to prostitute oneself" is scortor, scortārī, which occurs chiefly in Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
. This word may relate to Latin scorteus, "made of leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
or hide", much as English refers to the skin trade; or it may be a pure pejorative related to Greek , "shit". Plautus illustrates its use in Amphitryon (play)
Amphitryon (play)
Amphitryon is a Latin play for the early Roman theatre by playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. Plautus’ only play on a mythological subject, he refers to it as a tragicomoedia in the prologue...
:
- Quando mecum pariter potant, pariter scortari solent,
Hanc quidem, quam nactus, praedam pariter cum illis partiam.- ("When they go out drinking and whoring, I'll certainly want a piece of that action myself.")
Prostitutes were called meretrīx, "earner", and lupa, "she-wolf"; a brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
was a lupānar; these words referred to the mercantile and perceived predatory activities of prostitutes. The Latin word prōstituō had a root meaning of "to expose for public sale." The word glūbō, glūbere, glūpsī, glūptus meant "to peel", and by extension, "to rob"; it was often used of prostitutes; compare English she took him to the cleaners.
The important and productive words for a prostitute, *puta or *putāna, are not attested in Classical Latin, despite their many Romance derivatives: French putain and pute, Italian puttana, Spanish (and Filipino), Catalan, Portuguese and Galician puta. Under French linguists point of view, they seem to relate to Latin puteō, putēre, "to stink," and thus to represent yet another metaphor.. Spaniards María Moliner
María Moliner
María Moliner was a Spanish librarian and lexicographer. She is perhaps best-known for her Diccionario de uso del español, first published in 1966-1967, when she completed the work started in 1952.-Biography:María Juana Moliner Ruiz was the eldest daughter of Enrique Moliner, a doctor and son of...
(author of the famous dictionary of Spanish) and Joan Coromines
Joan Coromines
Joan Coromines i Vigneaux was a linguist who made important contributions to the study of Catalan, Spanish and other Romance languages....
think they came from Vulgar Latin putta, femenine form of puttus, superlative (as adjective) form of putus, "pure", "boy". In Portugal, the word puto has the same connotation as "small kid" or "little boy". And in Romanian childhood slang "puţă" means penis or vagina.
Latin profanity in popular culture
The HBOHome Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
/BBC2 original television series Rome
Rome (TV series)
Rome is a British-American–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic...
depicts the city with the grit and grime that is often absent from earlier productions, including that of language. But since the actors speak English, Latin profanity is mostly seen in written graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
, such as:
- ATIA FELLAT, "Atia sucks"; "fellatio" is a noun derived from this verb.
- ATIA AMAT OMNES, "Atia loves all [men]". Thus calling her a whore or slut.
- CAESARI SERVILIA FUTATRIX, "Servilia is CaesarCaesar (title)Caesar is a title of imperial character. It derives from the cognomen of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator...
's bitch".
However, the character Titus Pullo says "cack!" occasionally when irritated, most likely a derivative of caco above.
See also
- ProfanityProfanityProfanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
- Dutch profanityDutch profanityDutch profanity can be divided into several categories. Often, the words used in profanity are based around various names for diseases. In many cases, these words have evolved into slang, and many euphemisms for diseases are in common use....
- Spanish profanitySpanish profanityThis article is a summary of Spanish profanity, referred to in the Spanish language as lenguaje soez , maldiciones , malas palabras , insultos , vulgaridades , juramentos , palabrotas , tacos , palabras sucias ,...
- Portuguese profanityPortuguese profanityPortuguese profanity is an assortment of words and phrases considered vulgar, blasphemous, inflammatory or offensive in the Portuguese language.-Overview:...
- Quebec French profanityQuebec French profanityThe literal translation of the French verb sacrer is "to consecrate". However, in Quebec it is the proper word for the form of profanity used in Quebec French. The noun form is sacre....
- Italian profanityItalian profanityItalian profanity refers to a set of words considered blasphemous or inflammatory in the Italian language....
- Romanian profanityRomanian profanityRomanian profanity refers to a set of words considered blasphemous or inflammatory in the Romanian language.Romanian is considered to have a huge set of inflammatory terms and phrases...
- Dutch profanity
- Vulgar LatinVulgar LatinVulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
External links
- The Priapeia (Latin and English)
- Poems of Martial (Latin)
- Poems of Catullus (Latin)
- Poems of Horace (Latin)
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (German and English; partial)
- Latein-Online List of Swear Words (German)