Paphian

1. not comparableOf, from or relating to Paphos, the mythical birthplace of the goddess of love on the island of Cyprus.First known use 16th c.

   […] the Paphian deitie,

   1611, Homer, translated by George Chapman, Iliads, page 281

   2 more examples

   Then thus incensed, the Paphian queen replies: / "Obey the power from whom thy glories rise: / Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly, / Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye. / Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more / The world’s aversion, than their love before; / Now the bright prize for which mankind engage, / Than, the sad victim, of the public rage."

   1715–1720, Homer, “Book III”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC

   So ſaying, the might of Vulcan loos’d the ſnare, / And they, detain’d by thoſe coercive bands / No longer, from the couch upſtarting, flew, / Mars into Thrace, and to her Paphian home / The Queen of ſmiles, where deep in myrtle groves / Her incenſe-breathing altar ſtands embow’r’d.

   1791, Homer, “[The Odyssey.] Book VIII.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume II, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 181, lines 441–446

2. literarynot comparablePertaining to love or sexual desire, especially when illicit.First known use 16th c.

   Cease admiration, sit to Cupid's feast, / The preparation to Paphian dalliance.

   1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, act III scene 4

   2 more examples

   I lay, as it were, in the Paphian bower of bliss, in a state of exquisite sensations quite impossible to describe.

   1873, Anonymous (William Potter), The Romance of Lust; or, Early Experiences, volume I, William Lazenby

   People passed, but they held me not. Paphian eyes rayed upon me, and left me unscathed.

   1906, O. Henry, Man About Town

plural Paphians

1. A native or inhabitant of Paphos.

   Then there is the mastus. Apollodorus the Cyrenæan, as Pamphilus says, states that this is a name given to drinking-cups by the Paphians.

   1854, Athenaeus of Naucratis, translated by Charles Duke Yonge, The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned, volume II, page 777

2. literaryA prostitute.

   A smile I had learned to know elsewhere lurked at one corner of my paphian's mouth.

   1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter 9, in The Shadow of the Torturer

   1 more example

   They reach'd the hotel: forth stream'd from the front door / A tide of well-clad waiters, and around / The mob stood, and as usual several score / Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound / In decent London when the daylight's o'er; / Commodious but immoral, they are found / Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage.

   1824, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto the Eleventh, XXX