Talk:testis

About the relationship of the two latin meanings

Because the etymology of the second latin meaning seems unclear, here some association I have:

German zeugen has the 2 meanings of 1. to attest 2. to beget, to procreate Thus from 2. to "testicle" (latin testis) it is not far.

Descending from PIE Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/dewk- with the multiple descending Proto-Germanic meanings seem promising, especially Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/taumaz and it's Old English descendent team#Old_English --Utonsal (talk) 20:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

According to one of our footnotes,

The German word for witness, 'Zeuge', goes back to the Old High German 'giziugon' and the Middle High German 'ziugen', meaning 'producing through technical activity'.

However on talk:zeugen there is a claim that the two meanings are ultimately from separate (though perhaps distantly related) Germanic roots. Dutch also has a word getuige, which looks like it would be related to tuig, just as Zeug looks like it's related to Zeuge, but we do not make that claim.

Personally I'd always assumed that it just meant "witness (to the sex act)" because without modern medical knowledge one might find it amusing that the testicles are so close to participating in sex but can instead only witness it close up. But now I realize that a farming-based society knows perfectly well what testicles are for. This doesn't kill my idea, but it weakens it. —Soap— 14:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

two together

Okay it took me a while to figure it out but I think the part of the etymology I just deleted is referring to the idea of the testicles witnessing the sex act to each other, in the derived sense of speaking about an experience, as if saying "did you see THAT?" It's plausible since Latin has a verb testificor meaning to bear witness (as opposed to just experiencing something), and the verb we list for witness (experience) is experior. even so, i find it simpler to assume that the comparison is a noun, and that the testicles witness (see) the sex act in a way no other body part does. I can see an argument for restoring this secondary explanation, but even if we do that I dont think the Gk and Fr words are really helpful, as neither of them (at least not that we list) can mean "testicle"., —Soap— 13:56, 8 January 2024 (UTC)