Meanings
- historicalA region of the world, approximately defined as a strip of Afroeurasia from the Mediterranean region eastward as well as the entirety of the Americas, in which male homosexuality was supposed to be societally prevalent.
1 more example
Within the Sotadic Zone the Vice is popular and endemic, held at the worst to be a mere peccadillo, whilst the races to the North and South of the limits here defined practice it only sporadically amid the opprobrium of their fellows who, as a rule, are physically incapable of performing the operation and look upon it with the liveliest disgust.
1894, Richard Francis Burton, “Terminal Essay”, in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume X, London: H.S. Nichols & Co.
Origin
Coined by British explorer, army officer, writer and scholar Richard Francis Burton in 1886.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Sotadic Zone. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Sotadic%20Zone
“Sotadic Zone.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Sotadic%20Zone. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Sotadic Zone,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Sotadic%20Zone.
Source: Sotadic Zone on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.