cunnus

Uncertain. Various theories include:

• Proto-Indo-European *gʷḗn (“woman”), whence it would be cognate with Mycenaean Greek 𐀓𐀙𐀊 (ku-na-ja), Old English cwene, Proto-Slavic *žena, Sanskrit जनि (jani);
• Proto-Indo-European *kutnos (“cover”), cognate with cutis (“skin”). The metaphor is identical to the one connecting Latin vulva and English hull, albeit from a different Indo-European root.
• A relationship to Latin cuneus (“wedge”).
• From Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”), evolved from an original sense of “gash”, “slit”.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkun.nus/, [ˈkʊnːʊs̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkun.nus/, [ˈkunːus]

cunnus m (genitive cunnī); second declension

1. woman
   • 40/41 CE, Horatius, Sermones, I, 3, 107:

     nam fuit ante Helenam cunnus taeterrima bellī
     causa, sed ignōtis periērunt mortibus illī,
     quōs vēnerem incertam rapientis mōre ferārum
     viribus ēditior caedēbat ut in grege taurus.

     For before Helen's time there existed [many] a woman who was the dismal cause of war: but those fell by unknown deaths, whom pursuing uncertain venery, as the bull in the herd, the strongest slew.

2. (vulgar) cunt, cunny (obscene word for the vulva)
3. (vulgar) female genitalia, pubic hair

Second-declension noun.

• cūlus (“anus, arse”)
• cūnae (“cradle, nest for young birds”)
• cuneus (“wedge”)
• cunīculus (“rabbit”)
• cunnilingus (“cuntlicker”)

• “cunnus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cunnus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers