# What's the original Anglo-Saxon word for "penis"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 25, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458 "2003-05-25T21:43:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/1 "2003-05-25T21:43:21Z")
“Penis” is from Latin, and every other commonly used word for it in English is an obvious slang phrase. What was it’s proper name back in ye olde times? ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/2 "2003-05-25T22:15:57Z")
‘Cock’ ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/3 "2003-05-25T22:50:30Z")
[Possibly “pintle”.](http://www.bartleby.com/61/0/P0320000.html) > [@](#): > > pintle > > SYLLABICATION: pin·tle > PRONUNCIATION: pntl > NOUN: 1. A pin or a bolt on which another part pivots. 2. Nautical The pin on which a rudder turns. 3. The pin on which a gun carriage revolves. 4. A hook or a bolt on the rear of a towing vehicle for attaching a gun or trailer. > ETYMOLOGY: Middle English pintel, penis, from Old English. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/4 "2003-05-25T22:53:51Z")
Wrong, **MC Master of Ceremonies**. _Cock_ means a male chicken and was used to refer to the penis only metaphorically. Besides, it isn’t from Old English at all. It came from French, derived from Latin _coccus_, a cackling. The real answer to the OP is _pintel_. The word survives in Modern English as _pintle_, meaning a pin on which a rudder or gun pivots. Also the second part of [_cuckoopint_](http://www.edensong.com/garden/plants2001/cuckoopint-fruit2.jpg), originally _cuckoopintel_, a flower (_Arum maculatum_) with a phallic shape. Joseph Wood Crutch writes in his great book of botanical folklore, _Herbal_, > [@](#): > > No “signature” is more immodestly evident than that provided by the very phallic central column (actually a spadix bearing the small male and female flowers) and most of the popular names embody evidence, now somewhat obscured, that the folk imagination had deciphered the signature. Cuckoopint is short for Cuckoopintel, and Wake-Robin (though now gently poetic) was clear enough to those same Elizabethans who snickered when the mad Ophelia sang “For bonnie sweets, Robin is all my joy.” > > …It is the later Herbalists who stress the supposed effectiveness of the Arums as aphrodisiacs… Here is what Coles has to say of the Cuckoopint: > > “It hath not only the signature which will sufficiently declare itself but the virtues also according to the signature, for they are notable for stirring up of inclination to copulation, being either well roasted under the embers or boiled.” He then adds that among other names are Sacerdotis Penis, or, In English, Priests Pintle. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/5 "2003-05-25T23:02:42Z")
**astro** , I woula been first out of the box if I hadn’t taken the time to delve deeper into the philology. I just want everyone to be conscious that answering GQ questions is more than merely a matter of Googling. To really dig into a question, often it helps to have read widely, to be able to draw upon a wealth of associations in one’s memory, and to have a library of books at hand to research knowledge further than Google can take you. ---
**Author:** ![Agback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Agback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agback)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/6 "2003-05-26T00:47:27Z")
G’day ‘Pintle’ is originally derived from Old English ‘pintel’, which was a general term for pointed things. So even this is probably a euphemism, just an obsolete one. ‘Prick’ is another word for a penis that originally means ‘pointed thing’, and there are similar words in lots of other languages (eg. Danish ‘pic’, Swedish ‘pick’, Dutch ‘tump’, Russian ‘chuj’, Greek ‘charkion’, Spanish ‘carajo’). ‘Zerd’ is another old word for penis (now spelled ‘yard’). It originally meant ‘rod’ or ‘staff’. In Old English there was also ‘woepned’ (the ‘oe’ is a ligature), which is a masculine form of ‘woepen’ (weapon). And ‘teors’ (related to the term for the boss of a shield-- it survives as the dialectal ‘tarse’, meaning penis). And ‘teran’ (etymology in doubt). Records of Old English are sadly few, so the undoubted use of words meaning ‘swelling’, ‘tail’, ‘tassel’, ‘nail’, ‘tool’, ‘powerful thing’, ‘creative object’, ‘spear’, ‘sword’, ‘peg’ etc. is not attested. According to Carl Darling Buck the Prote-Indo-European word has been reconstructed as ‘\*pes-’ or ‘\*pesos-’, from which Greek ‘peos’, Latin ‘penis’, Sanskrit ‘pasas’, Old High German ‘faselt’, and Modern English ‘pizzle’-- my suggestion for the ‘proper’ English word for the _membrum virile_. Regards, Agback ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/7 "2003-05-26T01:03:48Z")
Just to throw in a few dates from the OED for synonyms older than “penis” in English (not all derived from Anglo-Saxon): ca. 1000 tarse ca. 1100 pintle ca. 1300 pillicock ca. 1400 verge 1483 tail 1523 pizzle 1592 prickle/prick 1618 cock ---
**Author:** ![Agback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Agback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agback)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/8 "2003-05-26T01:09:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Agback \* > \*\*According to Carl Darling Buck the Prote-Indo-European word has been reconstructed as '_pes-’ or 'pesos-’, from which Greek ‘peos’, Latin ‘penis’, Sanskrit ‘pasas’, Old High German ‘faselt’, and Modern English ‘pizzle’-- my suggestion for the ‘proper’ English word for the membrum virile._ My apologies, you weere asking for an Old English word, not the Modern English word of native etymology with a non-figurative derivation. ‘Pizzle’ is not attested in writing before 1532, and its existence in some form such as ‘\*pisel’ or ‘\*fisel’ in earlier times would be conjectural–it might be derived from Dutch, or Frisian rather than Middle English. The words actually attested from Old English (a.k.a. Anglo-Saxon) would be the euphemisms I gave above: woepned, teors, teran, pintel. Regards, Agback ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/9 "2003-05-28T00:17:12Z")
Hmm… so we have a part of the body that effectively has no name of it’s own, but has been referred to by euphenisms in every Indo-European language as far back as we have records. There’s a profound implication somewhere there. ---
**Author:** ![Agback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Agback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agback)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/10 "2003-05-28T00:35:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lumpy \* > **Hmm… so we have a part of the body that effectively has no name of it’s own, but has been referred to by euphenisms in every Indo-European language as far back as we have records.** Not exactly. PIE “\*pesos”, Sanskrit “pasos”, Greek “peos”, Latin “penis”, OHG “faselt”, and modern English “pizzle” are all ‘proper’ (ie. non-figurative) words for the male organ of generation. Cognate, too. But euphemisms, metaphors, and joke terms are rife. on the other hand, there is something to be said for the position that in English anyway, any masculine personal name and any improper noun or noun phrase can be used to refer to the genitals with perfect comprehensibility. If I tell you that so-and-so got kicked in the coach and horses, or that I want to try out my socket wrench, there is no doubt what I mean, even though (as far as I know) neither metaphor has ever been used before. I think that tells us something. Regards, Agback ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/11 "2003-05-28T16:52:02Z")
I suspect many words, not at all related to peni–, er, pint–, um, pizzles, are derived from such fanciful associations. Onomatopoeia, metaphor, and other practices create new words and new meanings for old words. But, yeah, sex and the sexual organs are – fertile, shall we say, with this sort of word play. Reminds me of the _Whose Line Is It Anyway?_ game called “…if you know what I mean!” ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_McGinness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90ced4/32.png) [@Frank\_McGinness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_McGinness)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/12 "2019-08-09T06:35:51Z")
On the subject of the word penis, I appreciate etymologist Bill Casselman. Our word cock comes from the 4,000 year old Egyptian word “Kuk” in hieroglyphics meant cock, penis, darkness. Cock’s sister is called cunt from “Ka-t”. Canaanite -t signifies feminine. “Ka-t in hieroglyphics meant vulva, vagina, mother, and women. Qefen-t, another ancient Egyptian word for vagina, even has the letter n infixed in the root. Consider the Hittite kun ‘tail of an animal.’ A piece of tail, anyone? In Persian kun is the ass, the bum, the posterior. So this is not only a Proto-Indo-European root word. It looks like a very early borrowing from a Mediterranean rootstock or language now lost. Eric Partridge is the linguist who first suggested this.” [https://casselmanual.blogspot.com/2013/06/cunt-blunt-history-of-word.html?m=1](https://casselmanual.blogspot.com/2013/06/cunt-blunt-history-of-word.html?m=1) So they have the last word of origins. From Egypt to Canaanite to English. Both cock and cunt are used equally throughout the ages until our modern feminist movement cried otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/13 "2019-08-09T07:49:18Z")
Those etymologies for cock and cunt are \*pure \*speculation, and stand on the \*very \*shaky foundation of monogenetic linguistic origin. Suffice to say, I do not think the case for that is very convincing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/14 "2019-08-09T07:59:49Z")
> [@Frank\_McGinness](#): > > […] So they have the last word of origins. From Egypt to Canaanite to English. Both cock and cunt are used equally throughout the ages until our modern feminist movement cried otherwise. You were doing so well until this point, although I’ll defer to Mr. Dibble as to the strength of the scholarship. People object to the word “cunt” (which is the word I believe you are mourning) because it became a derogatory term for women.\* The point is that the word didn’t fall out of use because “feminists”. It fell out of use because the meaning itself changed. \*In the US, it is very insulting. Other places less so. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/15 "2019-08-09T08:22:30Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > You were doing so well until this point, although I’ll defer to Mr. Dibble as to the strength of the scholarship. > > People object to the word “cunt” (which is the word I believe you are mourning) because it became a derogatory term for women.\* The point is that the word didn’t fall out of use because “feminists”. It fell out of use because the meaning itself changed. > > \*In the US, it is very insulting. Other places less so. In the UK also. We now have the (ludicrous to me) euphemism “front bottom” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/16 "2019-08-09T08:28:32Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > In the UK also. > > We now have the (ludicrous to me) euphemism “front bottom” I don’t think any adult would ever say that unironically. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/17 "2019-08-09T08:59:43Z")
> [@Frank\_McGinness](#): > > On the subject of the word penis, I appreciate etymologist Bill Casselman. Our word cock comes from the 4,000 year old Egyptian word “Kuk” in hieroglyphics meant cock, penis, darkness. Cock’s sister is called cunt from “Ka-t”. Canaanite -t signifies feminine. This is the first I’ve heard of Casselman. He seems to have written a lot of mass-market books on word origins, but I don’t see anything scholarly, and his professional background seems to be in mass media rather than linguistics or lexicography. These facts alone don’t mean that he’s wrong, but it should give one pause before unconditionally accepting him as a reliable source on etymology. The chances of the English “cock” and “cunt” having origins in Ancient Egyptian are exceedingly remote. There are precious few English words that can be reliably traced back to Ancient Egyptian—you can see [a fairly comprehensive list](http://www.egyptologyforum.org/AEloans.html) (also seemingly not by a linguist or lexicographer, but well-referenced to scholarly sources). Among them no one—not even Casselman—places “cock” and “cunt”. If you read the blog post you linked to carefully, he claims only that the Egyptian “Ka-t” is a _relative_ of “cunt”, not an _ancestor_. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/18 "2019-08-09T09:22:36Z")
> [@Agback](#): > > ‘Pintle’ is originally derived from Old English ‘pintel’, which was a general term for pointed things. So even this is probably a euphemism, just an obsolete one. ‘Prick’ is another word for a penis that originally means ‘pointed thing’, and there are similar words in lots of other languages (eg. Danish ‘pic’, Swedish ‘pick’, Dutch ‘tump’, Russian ‘chuj’, Greek ‘charkion’, Spanish ‘carajo’). I realize this post is almost old enough to vote, but I have no idea what is _carajo_ doing in that list. If it’s got anything to do with “pointed things”, RAE doesn’t know about it. I can’t even begin to guess. [DRAE](https://dle.rae.es/?id=7PHLd6o), translation mine: ++++ _Origin unkown._ 1. _m. noun; uncouth_; penis 2. _m. and f. noun; uncouth insult, slang, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, R. Dominicana and Venezuela_. Used in conversation as a way to put down the person who’s been mentioned. _Ya está aquí ese carajo_. “Oh, here comes that dick.” ++++ The main entry is followed by a handful of locutions, all of which are considered unacceptable in front of your dear grandmother. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/19 "2019-08-09T15:06:20Z")
Just need to point out that I think it was Henry V where Shakespeare uses the expression “thou bull’s pizzle” as an insult. (At least in the unexpurgated versions) So that was common usage and I assume, nit so incredibly vulgar as to trigger the censors. Also, hard to take Ka-t seriously when it also means pussy. Perhaps the source for that is pulling your leg, or your Kuk. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458/20 "2019-08-09T15:40:02Z")
If you’re going to claim an English word came from Egyptian, then you’re going to have to explain _how_ it came from that language. I can see maybe an Egyptian word being used in the Bible, and spreading out through the Bible-reading world from there. I can see some distinctively Egyptian thing or concept being referred to by its native name. I can see a modern word being coined in the era of global media, by a person who happened to be Egyptian. But none of those would account for “cock”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-original-anglo-saxon-word-for-penis/177458.md?page=2)