castrate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin castrātus, the past participle of castrō (“to castrate, prune, expurgate”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} though Barnhart and Etymonline allow that it may be a back-formation from castration, recorded from about 1420.^[7][3][2] The Latin verb is usually derived from a noun *castrum (“knife”),^[3][7][8] which Klein writes *kastrom.^[4] The root is Proto-Indo-European *ḱes- (“to cut”),^[7][3][9] also seen in Ancient Greek κεάζω (keázō, “to split”) and in a word for a knife in Sanskrit.^[7][10][4] Klein and Partridge relate Latin castrum (“fort, camp”), which would have meant first a place cut off,^[4][10] and Klein and Weekley compare castus (“pure”).^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Figurative, to deprive of vigour: 1554, in T. Martin's Traictise on the marriage of priests.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives 1554 for the physical sense,^[5] but the OED's first record of that is 1609.^[2] Barnhart has 1633, and castrated from 1613.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Figurative use is recorded before the physical sense, and Etymonline also notes this order.^[2][3] From 1627 the verb was applied to books: to cut out a sheet or passage, especially an obscene one,^[2] and Johnson (1755) gave "to geld" and "to take away the obscene parts of a writing" as its two senses.^[12] The Latin sense "to prune" also appeared in English gardening from 1658 to 1753.^[2] The noun for a eunuch dates from 1639 in the OED,^[2] though the Shorter Oxford has it in late Middle English;^[6] Partridge thinks it came through Italian castrato and French castrat.^[10] Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) has the botanical use, removing the anthers of a flower.^[2]

Timeline

• 1554 – figurative, to deprive of vigour or force.^[2]
• 1609 – to remove the testicles of.^[2]
• 1627 – to remove passages from a book; to expurgate.^[2]
• 1639 – noun, a castrated man, a eunuch.^[2]
• 1658 – to prune (obsolete by 1753).^[2]
• 1704 – adjective, castrated.^[2]
• 1859 – in botany, to remove the anthers of a flower.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To remove the testicles of; to geld or emasculate: The farmer castrated the young bulls in spring.^[13][5][2]
2. To remove the ovaries of; to spay.^[13][5]
3. To deprive of vigour, force or masculinity.^[13][5][2]
4. To expurgate or censor a book, play or other text.^[13][5][2]
5. In botany, to remove the anthers or the pistil of a flower.^[2]

Noun

1. A castrated person or animal.^[5][2][6]

Adjective

1. Castrated.^[5][2]

Word family

• castrater
• castration
• castrator

Related words

• castrato
• castle
• chaste
• caret
• caste

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins