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The Many Synonyms of Cuckold
One of the more glaring inequities of the English language is that it has a significantly larger number of words for “a man whose wife is unfaithful” than it does for “a woman whose man is unfaithful.” Cuckold is perhaps the best known of these words, and it has many synonyms, including (but by no means restricted to) cornute, cornuto, hoddy-doddy, hoddypoll, horn, ram, and wittol (a man who is aware of his wife’s infidelity and acquiesces to it). What of a woman whose husband is unfaithful? For that our language appears to have but a single word, and an obscure one at that: cuckquean.
Examples of cuckold in a Sentence
Kimi Robinson, USA Today, 10 June 2025
How did Greg’s cuckold fantasy inform the character for you?
—Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 8 Apr. 2025
European leaders initially sat quietly in the corner, watching Trump attempting to make cuckolds of them and musing about having his way with Greenland, before finally reacting.
—Rachel Marsden, Hartford Courant, 19 Jan. 2025
But Henry has left her for a younger actress, Annie, whose actor husband has been cast in Henry's play as the possible cuckold.
—The Week Uk, theweek, 12 Sep. 2024
Resting among the fashion and art books, including the works of Tom Ford, lining the hallway are two ceramic hands from his native Naples that one of his brothers gave him, one hand making the sign of a cuckold, the other with a middle finger in the air.
—Jason Horowitz, Vogue, 12 Jan. 2024
On August 25, Jerry Falwell Jr., former president of Liberty University and one of the first on the Christian right to endorse Trump in 2016, was forced to resign from his post after being outed as a cuckold.
—Cameron Hilditch, National Review, 4 Sep. 2020
Her husband whisks her away, surprised and humiliated by the revelation and by having been exposed as a cuckold in front of his peers.
—Vulture, 8 Apr. 2022
Bloom is a Dubliner, a Jew, a husband and father, a racehorse-fancier, a cuckold—an Everyman, though not the kind that every man would wish to be.
—James Campbell, WSJ, 15 June 2022
Cite this Entry
“Cuckold.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cuckold. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025.
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