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A [derogatory term] for a man whose wife is or has been unfaithful.

A married man with an adulterous wife, but current [usage] sometimes extends the term informally to include cuckqueans (women with adulterous husbands), wittols (husbands who consent to their wife's [extramarital sex]), and non-married couples in analogous situations.

WORD HISTORY

The allusion to the cuckoo on which the word cuckold is based may not be appreciated by those unfamiliar with the nesting habits of certain varieties of this bird. The female of some Old World cuckoos lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving them to be cared for by the resident nesters. This parasitic tendency has given the female bird a figurative reputation for [unfaithfulness] as well. Hence in Old French we find the word cucuault, composed of cocu, "cuckoo, cuckold," and the pejorative suffix -ald and used to designate a husband whose wife has wandered afield like the female cuckoo. An earlier assumed form of the Old French word was borrowed into Middle English by way of Anglo-Norman. Middle English cokewold, the ancestor of Modern English cuckold, is first recorded in a work written around 1250.

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