Cuckold - History of The Term

History of The Term

Cuckold derives from the cuckoo bird, alluding to the alleged habit of the female in changing its mate frequently and authentic (in some species) practice of laying its eggs in other nests within its community. The association is common in medieval folklore, literature, and iconography. The original old English was "kukewold". It was borrowed from Old French "cuccault", which was made up of "cuccu" (old French for the cuckoo bird itself) plus the pejorative suffix – "ault", indicating the named person was being taken advantage of as by a cuckoo bird.

English usage first appears about 1250 in the satirical and polemical poem "The Owl and the Nightingale" (l. 1544). The term was clearly regarded as embarrassingly direct, as evident in John Lydgate's "Fall of Princes" (ca. 1440). In the late 14th century, the term also appeared in Geoffrey Chaucer's Miller's Tale. Shakespeare's poetry often referenced cuckolds, with several of his characters suspected they had become one.

The female equivalent cuckquean first appears in English literature in 1562, adding a female suffix to the "cuck". One often overlooked subtlety of the word is that it implies that the husband is deceived, that he is unaware of his wife's unfaithfulness and may not know until the arrival or growth of a child plainly not his (as with Cuckoo birds.) Another word, wittol, which substitutes "wete" (meaning witting or knowing) for the first part of the word, designates a man aware of and reconciled to his wife's infidelity and first appears in 1520