cinaedus

Forms

cinaedus m (genitive cinaedī); second declension^[1] Inscriptions at Pompeii spell it cinedus.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κίναιδος (kínaidos, “catamite; lewd dancer”).^[3][4][1] Wiktionary notes that the Greek word first meant a foreign dancer whose act featured movements of the buttocks, and that it may come from a language of Asia Minor.^[1] Nonius reports that the old writers called dancers and pantomimes by this name, deriving it from κινέω (kinéō, “to move”), to move the body.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus, whose Asinaria calls a man a curled cinaedus.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

It is a man who submits to anal sex, a catamite, sometimes loosely an effeminate or luxurious man.^[3][4][1] Lewis & Short cite Scipio Africanus through Gellius, Catullus, Petronius and Juvenal.^[4] A glossary explains it as people who shake their buttocks in public, and another as those whom the Apostle called ⟨mollēs⟩.^[2] Martial applies it to Sotades, author of the obscene poems called Kinaidoi.^[3] Pliny the Elder uses it of a yellow sea fish.^[3] As an adjective it means typical of a cinaedus, wanton.^[3][4] Pompeian graffiti spell it ⟨cinedus⟩.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it as an insult.^[3][5]
• 185/184–129 BC – Scipio Africanus the Younger uses it.^[4][5]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it.^[4][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of a sea fish.^[3][5]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of Sotades.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A catamite, a man who submits to anal sex; loosely, an effeminate man.^[3][4][1]
2. A sea fish.^[3]

Adjective

1. Typical of a cinaedus, wanton, shameless.^[3][4][1]

Word family

• cinaedicus
• cinaedulus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de