Cuckold
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A man married to an unfaithful wife, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact.
"If I never marry, I shall never be a cuckold."
- 2 a man whose wife committed adultery wordnet
- 3 A man who is attracted to or aroused by the sexual infidelity of a partner.
- 4 A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus triqueter.
- 5 The scrawled cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis and allied species.
Show 1 more definition
- 6 Synonym of fringed filefish.
- 1 To make a cuckold or cuckquean of someone by being unfaithful, or by seducing their partner or spouse. transitive
""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.""
- 2 be sexually unfaithful to one's partner in marriage wordnet
Example
More examples"A cuckold is a person who shares a bosom with at least one other person."
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.