vagina

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin vagina,^[2][3][4] the anatomical use of Latin vāgīna (“sheath, scabbard; husk of an ear of grain”).^[5][3][6] The OED, revising the entry in 2019, also names French vagina (now vagin) as a source, because the first English example translates a French text of 1609.^[5] The Latin word is of uncertain origin: it may be related to Lithuanian vožti (“to cover with a hollow thing”), from Proto-Indo-European *wāg- (“sheath”), according to Barnhart following Pokorny, or it may be a loanword;^[2][7][5] Etymonline quotes de Vaan calling the Lithuanian comparison "a gratuitous proposal".^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The passage leading from the vulva to the uterus: 1612, in an English translation of J. Guillemeau's Child-birth.^[5] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1653, and Barnhart and OED 1989 to 1682.^[4][2][8]

Semantic evolution

The word kept some of its Latin sense of "sheath": from 1683 it named sheathing parts of animals, from 1698 a sheath around a plant stem, and in 1728 the lower part of a statue from which the figure seems to rise.^[5] In zoology it was extended to similar organs of other animals (1721).^[5] A looser colloquial use for the external genitals as well dates from about 1890.^[5] The adjective vaginal (1726) first meant "of a sheath".^[2]

Timeline

• 1612 – in anatomy, the female genital canal.^[5]
• 1683 – a sheathing part of an animal (obsolete by 1871).^[5]
• 1698 – in botany, a sheath around a stem.^[5]
• 1721 – a similar organ in other animals.^[5]
• 1726 – vaginal, sheathlike.^[2]
• c. 1890 – colloquially, the external genitals too.^[5]
• 1908 – vagina dentata, in anthropology and psychology.^[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. In female mammals, the canal leading from the cervix of the uterus to the outside of the body.
2. (colloquial) The female external genitals together with this canal.
3. (anatomy, botany) A sheathlike part, such as a leaf base that wraps around a stem.

Word family

• vaginosis

Related words

• invaginate
• vaginal
• vaginate
• vaginismus
• vanilla
• evaginate

Usage notes

The plural is vaginas or, more technically, vaginae.^[9][4] Vanilla is the same word: it is Spanish vainilla, "little sheath", a diminutive of vaina "sheath", which descends from Latin vāgīna.^[10][3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black