Talk:gladius
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Latin. Rfv-sense: "(slang) penis". The word is briefly mentioned in Adams' "The Latin Sexual Vocabulary" (1982), but all of the examples Adams quotes seem to be innuendos at best: I have not yet seen any examples where it is clear it had developed a sexual denotation in and of itself. What I mean is, Adams 1982:20 mentions a case where the word is used with the literal, non-sexual sense 'sword' by a character in a play (Plautus Casina 909) but the situation is that the character has fumblingly groped another in the dark and felt a penis which he mistook for the hilt of a sword. This obviously is a joke based on the similar shape of sword-hilts and penises, but doesn't constitute an example of "gladius" actually being used with the sense "penis" (since in-character, the speaker doesn't even know that's what he's talking about): it only alludes to it indirectly. The same joke would work with any language's word for "sword" and "hilt", regardless of whether these words did or didn't have a secondary slang sense "penis". Adams 1982:21 also mentions Petronius 9.5 ("Cum ego proclamarem, gladium strinxit et "si Lucretia es" inquit "Tarquinium invenisti"") as a 'possible double entendre'. As with Lucretia, these lines refer to a case of attempted rape: while some secondary allusion to the penis isn't impossible, I think the context strongly suggests that 'gladius' is primarily a direct reference to a very literal sword. The TLL also mentions the Casina example as a case of gladius and capulus/-um used "obscaene de membro virili" but doesn't seem to treat this as a definition of its own. I don't think these kinds of examples justify listing "penis" as an actual sense of the word. For comparison, we don't list "penis" as a sense at English sword, although I'm sure similar or even more direct examples of the English word being used as a metaphor for the penis could be cited. In general, any word for a weapon, tool, vegetable, tree, etc. could be interpreted as a sexual innuendo, but I don't think it's necessary to list this as a sense under words where this use has not attained at least some idiomatic or conventional status.--Urszag (talk) 19:46, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
- ~RFV-failed.--Urszag (talk) 08:04, 31 October 2024 (UTC)