cuckold

noun

cuck·​old ˈkə-kəld How to pronounce cuckold (audio)
-(ˌ)kōld
: a man whose wife is unfaithful
cuckold transitive verb

Did you know?

The Many Synonyms of Cuckold

One of the more glaring inequities of the English language is that it has a significantly larger number of words for “a man whose wife is unfaithful” than it does for “a woman whose man is unfaithful.” Cuckold is perhaps the best known of these words, and it has many synonyms, including (but by no means restricted to) cornute, cornuto, hoddy-doddy, hoddypoll, horn, ram, and wittol (a man who is aware of his wife’s infidelity and acquiesces to it). What of a woman whose husband is unfaithful? For that our language appears to have but a single word, and an obscure one at that: cuckquean.

Examples of cuckold in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
But Henry has left her for a younger actress, Annie, whose actor husband has been cast in Henry's play as the possible cuckold. The Week Uk, theweek, 12 Sep. 2024 Resting among the fashion and art books, including the works of Tom Ford, lining the hallway are two ceramic hands from his native Naples that one of his brothers gave him, one hand making the sign of a cuckold, the other with a middle finger in the air. Jason Horowitz, Vogue, 12 Jan. 2024 On August 25, Jerry Falwell Jr., former president of Liberty University and one of the first on the Christian right to endorse Trump in 2016, was forced to resign from his post after being outed as a cuckold. Cameron Hilditch, National Review, 4 Sep. 2020 Her husband whisks her away, surprised and humiliated by the revelation and by having been exposed as a cuckold in front of his peers. Vulture, 8 Apr. 2022 Bloom is a Dubliner, a Jew, a husband and father, a racehorse-fancier, a cuckold—an Everyman, though not the kind that every man would wish to be. James Campbell, WSJ, 15 June 2022 Affleck, who once upon a time might’ve played one of those rivals, embraces the role of the quietly seething cuckold. Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2022 The hackneyed premise about a film-nerd cuckold in need of psychoanalysis distracts from the real-life dilemma of personal betrayal. Armond White, National Review, 4 Feb. 2022 And also, for some reason, making his rusty BFF Mater a cuckold. Devon Ivie, Vulture, 4 Oct. 2021

Word History

Etymology

Middle English cokewold

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of cuckold was in the 13th century

Dictionary Entries Near cuckold

Cite this Entry

“Cuckold.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cuckold. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

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