priapic

comparative more priapic · superlative most priapic

1. Phallic.First known use 1786

   The only relic of the temple of Isis is a priapic goblet; from the spout of which it is plain that the votaries must have quaffed the wine.

   1826, James Elmes, A General and Bibliographical Dictionary of the Fine Arts

   Synonyms: phallic

2. In a state of penile erection.

   1 more example

   When God presented Lilith to Adam, Adam was overjoyed and enthusiastically set her on the ground and tried to mount her after the fashion of the animals; but Lilith protested and said: "Why should I be on the bottom and you on the top?" Priapic Adam was in no mood to explain the natural order of things (from his point of view) and so he simply tried to compel her obedience by force.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 16

3. Related to or overly concerned with male sexual activity or exhibiting excessive male sexual activity.

   But despite his waxworks appearance, pre-Weinsteinian penchant for priapic innuendo and lingering criminal trials, Mr. Berlusconi, a former Italian prime minister, is no longer the joke of European politics.

   2018 January 29, Jason Horowitz, “Berlusconi Is Back. Again. This Time, as Italy’s ‘Nonno’”, in New York Times

   2 more examples

   Both artists were charming, shameless and cruel, and revelled in what Bacon called an “atmosphere of threat”. Often on the run or hiding out, they led priapic private lives: Bacon was homosexual, Freud hetero.

   2017 October 28, “A portrait of the artists as a pair of young wastrels”, in Standpoint Magazine, archived from the original on 28 Sep 2017

   And in every way that mattered his life story proved that we were wrong to listen to him, because at the end of the long slide lay only a degraded, priapic senility, or the desperate gaiety of Prince Prospero’s court with the Red Death at the door.

   2017 September 30, Ross Douthat, “Speaking Ill of Hugh Hefner”, in New York Times

4. Excessively masculine; excessively concerned with masculinity.

   Gabriele D’Annunzio, a priapic, drug-addicted poet, war hero, military adventurer and man about town, was a mesmeric figure who encouraged triumphalism in Italy’s nationalist right-wingers.

   2014 August 23, “Travails of a modern city”, in The Economist

   Synonyms: virile