Callipygian

[Otto]

from:
Michael Quinion today's newsletter
http://www.worldwidewords.org


2. Weird Words: Callipygian  /kalI'pIdzI at n/
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Having well-shaped buttocks.

This is a word about which it would be possible to generate many
bad puns, thereby making an ass of oneself and becoming the butt of
jokes. The subject matter - and the rather beautiful form of the
word itself - has lent itself to adoption by word-hungry authors,
even though the first recorded use is only in 1880. Thomas Pynchon
wrote this in _Gravity's Rainbow_: "Those dusky Afro-Scandinavian
buttocks, which combine the callipygian rondure observed among the
races of the Dark Continent with the taut and noble musculature of
sturdy Olaf, our blond Northern cousin". Its origin is in Greek
'kallipugos', used to describe a famous statue of Venus; that comes
from 'kallos', beauty (as in 'calligraphy', or 'callisthenics', or
the lily called 'hemerocallis') plus 'puge', buttocks (which also
appears in a word for a less comely characteristic, 'steatopygia',
accumulation of large amounts of fat on the backside).
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