Six Greek Verbs of Sexual Congress

Abstract

There existed in Greek a multitude of words denoting or connoting sexual congress. The list of verbs given by Pollux (5.92) only skims the surface. In what follows I discuss words which with one exception (ληκ) are absent from this list and belong, as will be seen from their distribution, to the lower register of the Greek language. They are all demonstrably direct expressions, blunt and non-euphemistic. Only one of them, κιν, is at all common in non-sexual contexts. As for the rest, if they originated through metaphor like many more respectable verbs of intercourse, this had long since been forgotten by native speakers. They rarely undergo any significant weakening, retaining their basic sexual denotation.