membrum puerile

See also: Membrum puerile

Translingual

Etymology

Latin membrum (“limb”, “member”; “penis”) + puerīle (“boyish”), after membrum virīle

Noun

membrum puerile n

1. (rare, somewhat euphemistic) a boy’s penis
   • 1975, Mario Szichman, Miguel Otero Silva, page 97

     La historia se reduce al largo de la nariz de Cleopatra, al membrum puerile de Perón, o al afán de rápido enriquecimiento de los militares venezolanos.

   • 2000, L. Holm, “‘The bishop who strove for completeness’ — On Taboos and Taboo-breaking in Swedish Dictionaries through the Ages” in Symposium on Lexicography IX, eds. Jens Erik Mogensen et al., page 234

     The register of cock words is more impressive: euphemisms are manslem, swantz and tyg, popular/vulgar is snorr, all of them already in the original version. Additions are the vulgar ball, kuk and pill (“penis, membrum puerile”).

   • 2007, Rainer Hoffmann, Im Himmel wie auf Erden: Die Putten von Venedig, page 87

     Auf einem Akanthusblätter-Sockel stehend, die Beine leicht gespreizt und den Unterleib mit angedeuteter graziöser Drehung ein wenig nach vorn gewölbt, präsentiert er sich in seiner paradiesischen Nacktheit samt membrum puerile in leibhaftigster Unschuld.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:membrum puerile.

Usage notes

• This phrase is attested in German (1750), French (1936), Spanish (1955), and English (2000).
• In German, this phrase is sometimes capitalised as Membrum puerile.
• In Spanish, which has no neuter gender, this phrase is treated as masculine.
• In Spanish, this phrase is only attested in use referring to the allegedly diminutive penis of the former President of Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón, in which contexts the puerīle is figurative.