vulva

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vulva (“womb; the female external genitals”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} also written volva.^[2][3][4][7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes the English word through New Latin.^[8] The further origin of the Latin word is uncertain:^[2][7] it is perhaps from volvō (“to turn, roll”), since the womb envelops the fetus,^[2] which would make it literally a "wrapper" or "covering".^[3][7] Etymonline traces that verb to Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to turn, revolve”),^[3] and the American Heritage Dictionary refers the noun to a root of the same form.^[9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares a Sanskrit word for the vulva, womb or placenta.^[8] The Latin word also gave Italian vulva (1310), Middle French vulve (1488) and Portuguese vulva (15th century).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The female external genitals, especially the orifice: Barnhart dates the word to 1392,^[10][4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Etymonline likewise to the 14th century.^[8][3] The first quotations in the OED and the Middle English Dictionary come from a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, probably from before 1425, which has the bladder's neck running in women to the vlue.^[2][11] Collins, Hoad and Dictionary.com date the word only to the 16th century.^[12][6][13]

Semantic evolution

In classical Latin the sense "womb" was much the more common, and "female external genitals" appears only in the satires of Juvenal and Persius.^[2] English took the rarer sense from the start, as a term of anatomy and zoology.^[2][11] Zoologists later applied the word to the external opening of the oviduct in invertebrates.^[5][8] In conchology it was used from 1802 to 1840 for an elliptical depression behind the umbo of certain bivalve shells.^[2] The adjectives vulval and vulvar are from the mid 19th century.^[5]

Timeline

• 1392 – the female external genitals.^[10][4] The OED's first quotation is probably from before 1425.^[2]
• 1802 – in conchology, a depression behind the umbo of a bivalve shell (obsolete by 1840).^[2]
• mid 19th century – the adjectives vulval and vulvar.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The external genitals of the female, including the labia, the clitoris and the opening of the vagina.^[12][9][8]
2. The opening between these external parts.^[8][5]
3. (zoology) The external opening of the oviduct in an insect or other invertebrate.^[8][5]

Word family

• vulval
• vulvectomy
• vulvar
• vulviform

Related words

• voluble
• volume
• volute
• revolve

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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House