cuckold
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: lifestyle
sexuality
Etymology: From Middle English cokolde, cokewold, cockewold, kukwald, kukeweld, from Old French cucuault; a compound of cucu (“cuckoo”) and Old French -auld. The word references the behavior of cuckoo birds where they lay their eggs in another bird’s nest. Cucu is either a directly derived onomatopoeic derivative of the cuckoo's call, or from Latin cucūlus. Latin cucūlus is a compound of onomatopoeic cucu (compare Late Latin cucus) and the diminutive suffix -ulus.
Old French -auld is from Frankish *-wald (similar suffixes are used in some personal names within other Germanic languages as well; compare English Harold, for instance), a suffixal use of Frankish *wald (“wielder, ruler, leader”), from Proto-Germanic *waldaz (compare German Gewalt, from the related *waldą (“power, might”)), from *waldaną (“to rule”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂welh₁- (“to be strong; to rule”).
Appears in Middle English in noun form circa 1250 as cokewald. First known use of the verb form is 1589.
Inflected forms:
form: cuckolds
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: cuckhold
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: cuckolds
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: cuckolding
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cuckolded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: cuckolded
pos: verb
tags: past
form: cuckhold
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: A man married to an adulterous spouse, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact.
pos: noun
examples: If I never marry, I shall never be a cuckold.
You see, it happened that two lieutenantesses were fighting, because their husbands had made cuckolds of them ...
In the early English drama, no play better approximates Ovid's contemptuous portrait of the willing cuckold than does Thomas Middleton's Chaste Maid in Cheapside (ca. 1612).
Nothing captured the alt-right mentality better than cuckservative, with its taunt that moderation is unmanly and certain conservative males are cuckolds.
gloss: A man who is attracted to or aroused by the sexual infidelity of a partner.
pos: noun
gloss: A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus triqueter.
pos: noun
gloss: The scrawled cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis and allied species.
pos: noun
gloss: Synonym of fringed filefish.
pos: noun
gloss: To make a cuckold or cuckquean of someone by committing adultery, or by seducing their partner or spouse.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: "Gave her anything she wanted - her own car, her own bank account, a free leg to amuse herself as she pleased. Of course she hated him for it. Cuckolded him, too, naturally."
Most of the twelve Caesars were rumored to have been licentious as both adulterers and homosexuals (not that the two were mutually exclusive, as will be seen), and Gaius and Nero were both supposed to have been adulterers, active homosexuals, and pathics. According to Suetonius, Julius Caesar was cuckolded by Clodius (Iul. 6, 74) but was himself so noted an adulterer that Pompey (lul. 50) called him "Aegisthus" (mock epic again); and his foreign affairs were the talk of Rome and of the army (Iul, 49–52).
Hey, I would never cuckold one of my friends. That’s way not cool.
Synonyms: Acteon
cornuto
cuck
cuckold
cuckhold
hoddy-peak
skimmington
Vulcanian
Related words: bull
vixen
wittol
cuckquean
cuckolder
cuckoldize
Derived words: cuck
cuckcake
cuckoldee
cuckolder
cuckolding
cuckoldize
cuckoldly
cuckold-maker
cuckoldom
cuckoldress
cuckoldry
cuckoldy
cuckquean
cucky
uncuckold
Translations: