cunnus

Latin

Alternative forms

cunnu (Pompeii)

Etymology

Uncertain. Various theories include:

Proto-Indo-European *kutnos (“cover”),^[1]^[2] 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 Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈkun.nus/, [ˈkʊnːʊs̠]
(modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkun.nus/, [ˈkunːus]

Noun

cunnus m (genitive cunnī); second declension

(usually vulgar) vulva, vagina (the female genitalia including their external as well as internal parts)
(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.
  So, the most awful cause of war—since even before Helen—
  Was pussy; but then other men to unsung deaths have fallen,
  Who by some stronger rival, like a raging bull, were struck
  Down in the act of squeezing in a chancy beast-style fuck.

Usage notes

This was the only Latin word properly referring to the female genitalia, and the degree of its obscenity was context-dependent.^[3] For example, in the curse tablet Audollent 135B,^[4] 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.

	singular	plural
nominative	cunnus	cunnī
genitive	cunnī	cunnōrum
dative	cunnō	cunnīs
accusative	cunnum	cunnōs
ablative	cunnō	cunnīs
vocative	cunne	cunnī

Descendants

Asturian: coñu
Catalan: cony
Dalmatian: con
French: con
Italian: conno
Neapolitan: cunnu
Occitan: con
Old Galician-Portuguese: cono m
- Galician: cona f, cono m
- Portuguese: cona f, cono m
Sicilian: cunnu
Spanish: coño
- → Dutch: conjo
- → English: conyo
- → Tagalog: konyo
→ Czech: kunda
→ Slovak: kunda
→ Hungarian: cuni, cunci
→ Welsh: cont

References

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

^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “cunnus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 154
^ Guus Kroonen (2013) “*hauþan-”, in Alexander Lubotsky, editor, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11)‎^[1], Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 217
^ Adams, James Noel (1982) The Latin sexual vocabulary‎^[2], Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 81
^ Audollent, Auguste Marie Henri (1904) Defixionum tabellae quotquot innotuerunt, page 191