codpiece
/ˈkɒdˌpiːs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.79 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A part of male dress in the 15th and 16th centuries, worn in front of the breeches to cover the male genitals.
noun
A conspicuous protection for the male genitals in a suit of plate armor.
Example Sentences
- ", Act III, Scene III, line 130. Borachio: Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is, how giddily ’a turns about all the hot-bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty, sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirch’d worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?"
- "Once Francis lifts her hand. She pulls back, half-resisting, and for one moment it seems he intends to lay her little fingers upon his unspeakable codpiece."
- "[David] Lynch’s film is actually much better than its terrible reputation, but Sting in a codpiece and a Toto soundtrack will never match the potential greatness of [Alejandro] Jodorowsky’s unmade epic."
- "On some suits were screwed large iron cod-pieces; these, according to tradition, were intended to prevent the ill consequences of those violent shocks received in charging, either in battle, or at a tournament. Same say, they were meant to contain sponges for receiving the water of knights, who in the heat of an engagement might not have any more convenient method of discharging it. But most probably, they were rather constructed in conformity to a reigning fashion in the make of the breeches of those times."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈkɒdˌpiːs/