What's wrong with the word "glans"?

[gymfresh]

Maybe this goes in cycles, but lately there seem to be lots of posts where guys are unsure of what to call the head of the penis. It's glans, and it's singular (more properly, glans penis, Latin for "acorn of the penis"). The plural is glandes.

Lots of guys write "gland" or "glands", as in "stroking my glands", which is something else altogether. In fact, there are no glands on the glans. Some seem ambivalent about the "s" on the end of a singular word, and write "glan". I've even seen guys write about "the shape of my glance" (and penus)!!!. But we seem to get by OK with most other singular words that end in -s, except some people get tripped up by "series" and "species" -- these words are both singular and plural; i.e., there is no "serie" or "specie".

Germans just call it an acorn. Spanish speakers might use capullo (cocoon), which depending on context can mean the glans or the foreskin, as most guys have both. Brits talk about their knob, but it's never quite clear whether they mean the knob-like head or the whole 8 inches.

For whatever reason, Americans seem doomed by the use of a Latin word to refer to the cockhead. Is this not covered in Sex Ed classes anymore?

 

[D_Dr_Dickmento]

Another British addition: bellend

 

[Infernal]

Some guys don't know the difference between prostrate and prostate. Being prostrate could make it easy for the glans to find your prostate, but they aren't the same thing at all.

 

[eurotop40]

Some guys don't know the difference between prostrate and prostate. Being prostrate could make it easy for the glans to find your prostate, but they aren't the same thing at all.

That's really a good one!

 

[Snozzle]

Maybe this goes in cycles, but lately there seem to be lots of posts where guys are unsure of what to call the head of the penis. It's glans, and it's singular (more properly, glans penis, Latin for "acorn of the penis"). The plural is glandes.

It is actually Latin for "acorn" and it is also the root (can I say root?) of the English word "gland"

 

[Endued]

I had no idea what it was called before I came here. 'Helmet' was good enough.

 

[zpacifico]

masturbation - masterbation and so on

 

[easytwist]

all is not lost, my doctor still uses "glans" and "prepuce." luckily i paid attention in health class, but he talks as if everyone uses that terminology. i wonder how many people he's confused over the years.

 

[Snozzle]

all is not lost, my doctor still uses "glans" and "prepuce." luckily i paid attention in health class, but he talks as if everyone uses that terminology. i wonder how many people he's confused over the years.

It is a relic of our anti-sex history that we have these two completely different vocabulaies. Imagine if a gynaecologist said "Well, Mrs Van Roosevelt, having some trouble with our cunt, are we?"

Or equally if some chav was trying to chat up some bird and said "Woooghh! Ya don't half have noice aureoles!"

"Prepuce" is so rare that even I have no idea what the "correct" pronunciation is, "PREE-pyoose" or "PREH-puss". The Shorter Oxford gives only /"priju:s/ (my first English spelling) but I have heard doctors use the second.

 

[deleted257218]

I have no problem with the word glans but prepuce just sounds so.... meh

 

[someperson]

Another British addition: bellend

Do not for get helmet head.

 

[Guill]

I think it was probably covered but it also baffles me. People would be a lot healthier if they knew a little more about their bodies.

 

[BigGlansDC]

"What's wrong with the word "glans"?"

Well, the term "glans" is that it is too clinical! That is what some guys tell me because I often use glans when I refer to the head of my cock. Yes, glans is the Latin word for acorn. Almost all Ancient Roman males were intact, uncircumcised. It was only Jews living in Rome then who were circumcised.

Most medical and anatomical terms, like "glans", were derived from either Latin or Greek words. Both medicine and anatomy as we know it in the western world had its origins in Ancient Greece and Rome and reached its fruition during the Middle Ages and Renaissance when the Latin language ruled supreme in medicine and anatomy as well as in scholarship and in the liturgy of the Western [Roman Catholic] Church until fairly recently.

Several of us in this thread have said correctly that "glans" is acorn in English. The glans in both flaccid uncircumcised and circumcised guys indeed has the shape of an acorn.

The English terms for glans are descriptive and can be sexually arousing, like knob, helmet, head, mushroom, shroom, etc. :smile:

 

[Snozzle]

Most medical and anatomical terms, like "glans", were derived from either Latin or Greek words.

And the Greek for acorn is balanos, hence balanitis, infection of the glans.

 

[JonathanQ]

Amazing. This site can be educational in serious ways, too.