pornography

pornography
\ \ [19] Pornography denotes etymologically the ‘depiction of prostitutes’; and indeed Webster’s dictionary 1864 defined the word as ‘licentious painting employed to decorate the walls of rooms sacred to bacchanalian orgies, examples of which occur in Pompeii’. Originally in English it was mainly reserved to classical Greek and Roman examples of the genre, and the application to contemporary books, magazines, etc did not emerge strongly until the 1880s. The term originated in Greek, based on pórnēprostitute’, and reached English via French.

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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  • pornography — por·nog·ra·phy /pȯr nä grə fē/ n: material that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement ◇ Pornographic material is protected expression unless it is determined to be obscene. However, child pornography is illegal under …   Law dictionary

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  • Pornography — Album par The Cure Sortie 3 mai 1982[1] Enregistrement janvier 1982 février 1982 au RAK Studio One à Londres Durée …   Wikipédia en Français

  • pornography —    Pornography is defined by US anti porn activist Andrea Dworkin as: ‘the graphic depiction of whores’ (Dworkin, 1981). Most pornography does indeed feature women posing in sexually revealing positions for money. However, in the light of the… …   Encyclopedia of contemporary British culture

  • Pornography — bonkbuster carnography climate porn debt porn domestic pornography drive by porn eco porn …   New words

  • pornography — [n] obscenity adult material, adult movie, bawdiness, dirt, dirty movie, erotica, filth, girlie magazine, hard core pornography, indecency, obscene materials, porn, porno, porno film, sexploitation, sexually explicit material, skin flick, smut,… …   New thesaurus

  • pornography — 1857, description of prostitutes, from Fr. pornographie, from Gk. pornographos (one) writing of prostitutes, from porne prostitute, originally bought, purchased (with an original notion, probably of female slave sold for prostitution; related to… …   Etymology dictionary

  • Pornography — Por*nog ra*phy, n. [Gr. ? a harlot + graphy.] 1. Licentious painting or literature; especially, the painting anciently employed to decorate the walls of rooms devoted to bacchanalian orgies. [1913 Webster] 2. (Med.) A treatise on prostitutes, or… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • pornography — ► NOUN ▪ printed or visual material intended to stimulate sexual excitement. DERIVATIVES pornographer noun pornographic adjective. ORIGIN Greek pornographos writing about prostitutes …   English terms dictionary

  • pornography — [pôr näg′rə fē] n. [< Gr pornographos, writing about prostitutes < pornē, a prostitute, orig. a euphemism, lit., (something) sold, akin to pernēmi, to sell (esp. as a slave, or for a bribe) < IE base * per , to sell, bring across, come… …   English World dictionary

  • Pornography — Porn redirects here. For other uses, see Porn (disambiguation). For other uses, see Pornography (disambiguation) …   Wikipedia

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