phallus

Etymology

From Latin phallus (“membrum virile, phallus, or a figure thereof”) from Ancient Greek φαλλός (phallós).

noun

  1. A penis, especially when erect.
    The phallus had power to subdue the attacks of demons and the Evil Eye[.] 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 159
    If the priests of Diana of Ephesus castrated themselves and offered their genitals on the altar, it was because the phallus was the symbol of the dying body. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 129
  2. A representation of an erect penis symbolising fertility or potency.
  3. (ornithology) A similar erectile sexual organ present in the cloacas of male ratites.
  4. (psychoanalysis) The signifier of the desire of the Other, and the signifier of jouissance.

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