tentigo

English

Etymology

From Latin tentīgō (“lust”), from tendō (“stretch”).

Noun

tentigo (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Penile erection or tumescence; especially, pathological erection (priapism).
   • 1817, John Elliotson (translator), J. Fred. Blumenenbach (Latin author), The Institutions of Physiology, third Latin edition, second English edition, E. Cox and Son, page 284:

     The emission of semen is excited by its abundance in the vesicles and by sexual instinct: it is effected by the violent tentigo which prevents the course of the urine, and, as it were, throws the way open for the semen; by a kind of spasmodic contraction of the vesiculæ seminales, […]

   • 1833, unnamed translators, James Gregory (Latin author), Conspectus Medicinæ Theoreticæ: Or, A View of the Theory of Medicine, Second Edition, Stirling & Kenneg, page 180:

     Sometimes an obstinate and painful erection takes place, either without appetite, or with great and insatiable desire. To this rare kind of disorder are given the several names, tentigo, priapism, satyriasis. […] that slighter tentigo that is often felt on awakening, by persons otherwise in the best health […]

   • 1849 March 3, H. J. McDougall, “Researches on Involuntary Seminal Discharges, and the Disorders Attending Them”, in The Medical Times, Volume XIX, William S. Orr and Company, page 379:

     Moreover, Boerhaave proceeded further than the suspicions of these physicians led him, as he expressly denied that he had ever known true semen to be discharged without a venereal tentigo, either sleeping or waking; so that it must be a very extraordinary disease indeed, wherein this fluid is spontaneously discharged, or without any sensation.

   • 1912 August, Victor Robinson, translating and quoting Aretaeus, in “Aretaeus, the Forgotten Physician”, in Medical Review of Reviews, Volume 18, Number 8, page 521:

     It is an unrestrainable impulse to connection; but neither are they at all relieved by these embraces, nor is the tentigo soothed by many and repeated acts of sexual intercourse.

See also

• surgation

Anagrams

• Oetting, get into, get it on

Latin

Etymology

From tendō (“stretch”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /tenˈtiː.ɡoː/, [t̪ɛn̪ˈt̪iːɡoː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /tenˈti.ɡo/, [t̪en̪ˈt̪iːɡo]

Noun

tentīgō f (genitive tentīginis); third declension

1. lecherousness, lust
   • c. 100 CE, anonymous, Carmina Priapea 33.5-6:

     turpe quidem factū, sed nē tentīgine rumpar,
     falce mihi positā fīet amīca manus.

2. erection of the penis

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	tentīgō	tentīginēs
genitive	tentīginis	tentīginum
dative	tentīginī	tentīginibus
accusative	tentīginem	tentīginēs
ablative	tentīgine	tentīginibus
vocative	tentīgō	tentīginēs

Related terms

• tendicula
• tendō
• tendor
• tensiō
• tensūra
• tenta
• tentipellium

Descendants

• English: tentigo

References

• “tentigo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “tentigo”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• tentigo in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• tentigo in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.