Word.ws English Dictionary

tentigo

tentigo noun: penile erection or tumescence; especially, pathological erection (priapism).

Noun

tentigo (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) Penile erection or tumescence; especially, pathological erection (priapism).
    • The emission of semen is excited by its abundance in the vesicles and by sexual instinct: it is effected by the violent tentigo which prevents the course of the urine, and, as it were, throws the way open for the semen; by a kind of spasmodic contraction of the vesiculæ seminales, […]1817, John Elliotson (translator), J. Fred. Blumenenbach (Latin author), The Institutions of Physiology, third Latin edition, second English edition, E. Cox and Son, page 284
    • Sometimes an obstinate and painful erection takes place, either without appetite, or with great and insatiable desire. To this rare kind of disorder are given the several names, tentigo, priapism, satyriasis. […] that slighter tentigo that is often felt on awakening, by persons otherwise in the...1833, unnamed translators, James Gregory (Latin author), Conspectus Medicinæ Theoreticæ: Or, A View of the Theory of Medicine, Second Edition, Stirling & Kenneg, page 180

Examples of tentigo in a sentence

  • To this rare kind of disorder are given the several names, tentigo, priapism, satyriasis. […] that slighter tentigo that is often felt on awakening, by persons otherwise in the best health […]1833, unnamed translators, James Gregory (Latin author), Conspectus Medicinæ Theoreticæ: Or, A View of the Theory of Medicine, Second...
  • It is an unrestrainable impulse to connection; but neither are they at all relieved by these embraces, nor is the tentigo soothed by many and repeated acts of sexual intercourse.1912 August, Victor Robinson, translating and quoting Aretaeus, in “Aretaeus, the Forgotten Physician”, in Medical Review of Reviews...

Origin of tentigo

From Latin tentīgō (“lust”), from tendō (“stretch”).

Questions about tentigo

What does tentigo mean?
Tentigo means penile erection or tumescence; especially, pathological erection (priapism).
How do you use tentigo in a sentence?
To this rare kind of disorder are given the several names, tentigo, priapism, satyriasis. […] that slighter tentigo that is often felt on awakening, by persons otherwise in the best health […]
What part of speech is tentigo?
Tentigo is a noun.

Words near tentigo in the dictionary

  1. tenthredinids
  2. tenths
  3. tenticular
  4. tentiform
  5. tentiginous
  6. tentigo
  7. tentilla
  8. tentillar
  9. tentillum
  10. tenting
  11. tentings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tentigo (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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