Contextualizebeta

cuckold

noun
/ˈkʌ.kəʊld/UK/ˈkʌ.koʊld/US

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.

  1. derived from *h₂welh₁-✻
  2. derived from *waldaz✻
  3. derived from *-wald✻
  4. derived from cucūlus
  5. derived from -auld
  6. derived from cucuault
  7. inherited from cokolde

Definitions

  1. A man married to an adulterous spouse, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of…

    A man married to an adulterous spouse, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact.

    • 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).

  2. A man who is attracted to or aroused by the sexual infidelity of a partner.

  3. A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus triqueter.

  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. The scrawled cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis and allied species.

    2. Synonym of fringed filefish.

    3. To make a cuckold or cuckquean of someone by committing adultery, or by seducing their…

      To make a cuckold or cuckquean of someone by committing adultery, or by seducing their partner or spouse.

      • "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."
      • Hey, I would never cuckold one of my friends. That’s way not cool.

The neighborhood

Derived

cuck, cuckcake, cuckoldee, cuckolder, cuckolding, cuckoldize, cuckoldly, cuckold-maker, cuckoldom, cuckoldress, cuckoldry, cuckoldy, cuckquean, cucky, uncuckold

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at cuckold. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01cuckold02infidelity03unfaithfulness04unfaithful05adulterous06adultery07cuckoldry

A definitional loop anchored at cuckold. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at cuckold

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA