Clitoris
/ˈklɪtərɪs/noun
The erectile organ at the front of the vulva, densely supplied with sensory nerves.
The Greek roots
Literally: “the little latch (disputed)”
The story of the word
The Greek word appears in ancient medical writing and its origin was already disputed then; the candidates include κλείειν, to shut, as of a latch, κλειτός, famous, and a word for a small hill. Renaissance anatomy fought over the organ as well: Realdo Colombo claimed the discovery in 1559 and Gabriele Falloppio insisted he had described it first, while both were writing about a structure Greek and Arabic physicians had recorded centuries earlier. The full internal anatomy, the legs and bulbs running back under the labia, was only imaged properly in the 1990s.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → New Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
In a sentence
Most anatomy textbooks printed before 2000 show the clitoris as a dot.
The nerve supply of the clitoris is denser than anywhere else on the body surface.