clitoris

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin clītoris,^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek κλειτορίς (kleitorís).^[2][3][6][7] The OED records the Latin word from 1552, and as cletoris from 1537, and also allows a borrowing straight from the Greek.^[2] The origin of the Greek word is uncertain.^[8] The OED, Klein and Weekley derive it from κλείω (kleíō, “to shut, close”), from κλείς (kleís, “key”), with an agent suffix and a diminutive one,^[2][7][9] perhaps because it is covered by the labia minora;^[8][7] Klein relates the verb to Latin claudō (“to shut”).^[7] The American Heritage Dictionary instead suggests a diminutive of an assumed noun Ancient Greek *κλείτωρ (*kleítōr, “clasp of a necklace, key”), from the verb "to close".^[3] Beekes, Barnhart and Watkins prefer an original sense "little hill": Beekes takes it as a medical term formed like ἀλεκτορίς (alektorís) from ἀλέκτωρ (aléktōr), from the same form in the sense "hill" (the name of a town in Arcadia), from κλίνω (klínō, “to lean, incline”), compare κλειτύς (kleitús, “slope, hill”) and Latin clīvus (“hill”),^[10][6][8] from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlei- (“to lean”).^[10][8] Some ancient medical writers give the verb κλειτοριάζω (kleitoriázō, “to touch the clitoris”), which Etymonline thinks was made from the noun.^[8][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The female genital organ at the front of the vulva: 1615, in H. Crooke's anatomy, Mikrokosmographia.^[2] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also give 1615;^[6][4] Dictionary.com dates it to 1605–15.^[11] French clitoris is recorded in 1611, in Cotgrave.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its anatomical sense.^[2][5] Before it, Middle English medical writing used Latin tentigo, in Chauliac, and one text rendered that as wombegates tunge.^[8] According to Etymonline, the Greeks themselves called the organ νύμφη (númphē, “bride”), and the anatomist Mateo Renaldo Colombo, a professor at Padua, who claimed to have discovered it in his De re anatomica (1559), named it amor Veneris, vel dulcedo, the love or sweetness of Venus.^[8] The slang clipping clit is recorded in 1958 in Green's Dictionary of Slang,^[12] and by 1969 in Etymonline.^[8]

Timeline

• 1615 – the female erectile genital organ.^[2][6][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, sensitive erectile organ at the front of the vulva, where the labia minora meet, that develops from the same tissue as the penis and plays a central part in sexual arousal.^{[4][13][3][2]}
2. The corresponding organ in other female mammals and some other vertebrates.^[5][6]

Word family

• clitoral
• clit
• clitoridectomy

Related words

• glans clitoridis
• close
• lean

Usage notes

The usual plural is clitorises, and also clitorides.^[4] Besides /ˈklɪtərɪs/ the word is said with stress on the second syllable,^[4][2] and Collins and the American Heritage Dictionary also give a first syllable like kly-;^[13][3] the first edition of the OED (1906) gave only that pronunciation, /ˈklʌɪtɒrɪs/.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins