cunnus

Latin

Etymology

Uncertain. Various theories include:

• Proto-Indo-European *kutnos (“cover”), cognate with cutis (“skin”). The metaphor is identical to the one connecting Latin vulva and English hull, albeit from a different Indo-European root.
• A relationship to Latin cuneus (“wedge”).
• From Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”), evolved from an original sense of “gash”, “slit”.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkun.nus/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkun.nus/,

Noun

cunnus m (genitive cunnī); second declension

1. (usually vulgar) the female genitalia including their external as well as internal parts; vagina
2. (vulgar, derogatory, synecdochically) a woman seen as merely providing access to sex (also used of homosexual men)
   • 40/41 CE, Horatius, Sermones, I, 3, 107:

     nam fuit ante Helenam cunnus taeterrima bellī
     causa, sed ignōtīs periērunt mortibus illī,
     quōs venerem incertam rapientīs mōre ferārum
     vīribus ēditior caedēbat ut in grege taurus.

     For even before Helen's time the fanny was the most bitter cause of war: but unknown to fame were the deaths of those whom, while they were snatching fickle love like wild-beasts, someone stronger than them slew like a bull does in the herd.

Usage notes

This was the only Latin word properly referring to the female genitalia, and the degree of its obscenity was context-dependent. For example, in the curse tablet Audollent 135B, addressed to a deity, the word is used in a list of names for body parts to be affected. Its appearance in literature also suggests it was not as rude or strongly tabooed as its English look-alike, cunt. The word occurs mainly in graffiti and epigram, most occurrences in the latter being by Martial.

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Descendants

See also

• cūlus (“anus, arse”)
• cūnae (“cradle, nest for young birds”)
• cuneus (“wedge”)
• cunīculus (“rabbit”)
• cunnilingus (“cuntlicker”)

References

• “cunnus” on page 518 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)

Further reading

• “cunnus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cunnus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers