inguen

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin inguen.

Noun

inguen (plural inguens)

1. (anatomy, archaic) The groin.
   • 1909, Transactions of the third International Sanitary Conference of the American Republics:

     Ganglions of the right and of the left inguens […]

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “inguen”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• gunnie, ingenu

Latin

Alternative forms

• (Late Latin) inguina

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *h₁n̥gʷ-en-, related to Ancient Greek ἀδήν (adḗn) and Old Norse ökkvinn.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈin.ɡʷen/, [ˈɪŋɡʷɛn]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈin.ɡwen/, [ˈiŋɡwen]

Noun

inguen n (genitive inguinis); third declension

1. (anatomy) groin
   • c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE, Virgil, Georgics 3.280–283:

     Hīc dēmum, hippomanes vērō quod nōmine dīcunt
     pāstōrēs, lentum dēstīllat ab inguine vīrus,
     hippomanes, quod saepe malae lēgēre novercae
     miscueruntque herbās et nōn innoxia verba.

     Here, finally, slowly trickles from the groin the poison that the shepherds call hippomanes, which evil stepmothers have often gathered and mixed with herbs and not harmless words.

2. privates (sexual organs)
   • c. 69 CE – 122 CE, Suetonius, De vita Caesarum 3 44:

     Maiōre adhūc ac turpiōre īnfāmiā flagrāvit, vix ut referrī audīrīve, nēdum crēdī fās sit, quasi puerōs prīmae teneritūdinis, quōs pisciculōs vocābat, īnstitueret, ut natantī sibi inter femina versārentur ac lūderent linguā morsūque sēnsim adpetentēs; atque etiam quasi īnfantēs firmiōrēs, necdum tamen lacte dēpulsōs, inguinī ceu papillae admovēret, prōnior sānē ad id genus libīdinis et nātūrā et aetāte.

     He was excited with a greater and more shameful infamy, that hardly can be told or heard, by no means be believed to be allowed by the gods, like how he trained little boys of the tenderest age, which he called 'little fish', to go around between his thighs and rouse his senses with the tongue and by biting, while he was swimming; or even how he put stronger babies, not weaned yet, to his genitals as if to nipples, certainly more inclined to this kind of lechery by nature as well as by age.

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	inguen	inguina
Genitive	inguinis	inguinum
Dative	inguinī	inguinibus
Accusative	inguen	inguina
Ablative	inguine	inguinibus
Vocative	inguen	inguina

Derived terms

• inguinālis

Descendants

• English: inguen
• Esperanto: ingveno
• French: aine
• Galician: ingua
• Italian: inguine
• Portuguese: íngua
• Spanish: ingle
• Romanian: inguină

References

• “inguen”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “inguen”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• inguen in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.