Cunctipotent, meaning all-powerful. I found it while searching information relating to the "Are you a prude" thread, wherein it describes Baubo, an Egyptian and Greek goddess of myrth and female power as being cunctipotent. On one site it mentioned that Baubo would lift her dress and flash those who were depressed, thereby giving the depresed one a good laugh and a good view!

I'd thought Asa was pulling our leg, but it's a real word -- and the root emphasizes the power of woman. According to Barbara Walker, Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, it is "derivative of the Oriental Great Goddess Cunti, or Kunda, the Yoni of the Universe". Could this be another name for the Goddess Kali?

From the same root are:
-- Cunnia; Cunina: a Roman Goddess who protected children in the cradle
-- cunabula: earliest abode ("the cunabula of the human race"); hence cradle
-- cunicle: a hole or passage (I can't verify this one on-line)
-- cuniculate: penetrated by a passage
-- cuniform: wedge-shaped

and the more common words country, kin, cunning (originally mean "learned") and kind, as well as ken in the sense of knowledge, learning, insight.

I'd bet this is also the source of:
-- cunicular: pertaining to underground passages or burrows; burrow-dwelling.
-- cuniculture: the agricultural practice of breeding and raising rabbits

[This message was edited by shufitz on Sat Apr 26th, 2003 at 18:08.]

Right on, Shufitz! I strongly suspect that the slang terms for women's genitals also derive from this source. Odd that such a noble ancestry would be slang, as in cunt in English, or con in French, or cono(with a ~ over the n) in Spanish, and so forth.

quote:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Cunctipotent

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Are you sure you spelled that right? Looks like too many "c's" to me.

Tinman

Cunctipotent is merely a variation on omnipotent. It comes from the Latin cunctus all + potens powerful.

Right, Arnie! What I find interesting about it is how many progeny cunctus has spawned, whereas omnia seems to have remained pretty much unaltered. There's a slightly veiled pun above, in that, as Shufitz mentioned, the origins of the word lie in the female generative force, as symbolized by the female genitalia. It seems to me to be the antithesis of the male attitude of masculine omnipotence.

Thread revival...beware, for adult eyes only!

I know, I know...we have been a little too sexual lately (or foul-mouthed), but, hey, I couldn't resist bringing this thread up. You will all understand after you read this article.

Think of Chicago's newspaper scene. The Chicago Tribune is the big paper here, and the Chicago Sun Times is always second best. So, the Sun Times must have been ecstatic with the above situation. In sum, an article on the "C" word got by the Woman News editors and was printed. When the Trib's top editor realized that the section had been printed already (at 4:00 p.m.), she insisted that it be yanked. Emergency! People from across the company hand-pulled the sections out of about 180,000 papers. The word across town at the Sun Times was that the workers came out with blackened hands from handling the papers.

Well, now . . . this is a fascinating thread!

What I'm wondering now is how many times has the Tribune had to hand-pull something like this? Very few, I'd imagine.

" 'We had folks from across the compny hand-pulling the section out,'said Patti Wetli, a company spokesperson."

Patty WETli? You'd think she'd be a bit more cunctipotent herself!

Certainly she was cunctipotent enough to make all those people dirty their hands! WooHOO! Let's hear it for the wet ones!

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WooHOO! Let's hear it for the wet ones!

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I'm glad you didn't capitalise "wet ones," since that would make it a brand name for baby wipes. Of course, babies ARE a natural result of all this wet stuff...