venus

plural venuses

1. Any of the bivalve molluscs in the genus Venus or family Veneridae.

plural Venuses · plural Veneres

1. astronomyThe second planet in the Solar system.

   Near-synonyms: morning star, Phosphorus, Eosphorus, Lucifer; evening star, Vesper, Hesperus

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   Venus rises on the 1st day 1/4 to 5 a.m., and 4h. 25m. a.m. on the last day. […] She is now beginning to move northward.

   The Illustrated London Almanack 1867, London, page 45

   The robot craft, the fifth from the Soviet Union to land on Venus, is a module detached from Venera 13. It plunged through the dense, baking-hot carbon dioxide atmosphere and touched down in the foothills of a mountainous region known as Phoebe, just south of the Venusian equator and also below the active volcanic region of Beta. An identical lander, from Venera 14, is expected to reach Venus Friday and probably put down on the plains east of the Phoebe landing site.

   1982 March 2, John Noble Wilford, “FIFTH SOVIET CRAFT LANDS ON VENUS AND IS FIRST TO SAMPLE PLANET'S SOIL”, in The New York Times (Science section), New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 May 2015

   Synonyms: morning star, Phosphorus, Eosphorus, Lucifer, evening star, Vesper, Hesperus

2. Romanhuman sciencesThe goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and sexuality, or a depiction thereof.

   Of all the classic Venuses known to us in modern times, this Venus of Milo is certainly the most popular.

   1884 January 8, “POPULARITY OF THE VENUS DE MILO.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

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   To call either or both of them by the name of Venus seems to me too positive; for although the theory of love which they embody was unquestionably associated with the two Venuses in Plato, ‘one draped, the other nude’, it is important to observe that, in contradistinction to Botticelli and Mantegna, Titian endowed the figures with attributes and characters which transcend the mythological idiom.

   1958, Edgar Wind, “Sacred and Profane Love”, in Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, →OCLC, page 126

   Now from Ficino’s In Platonis Convivium we learn that for the Neoplatonic philosopher there are two Veneres, not one. The first of these ‘twin Veneres’ is the Venus coelestis, born of Coelus alone, without a mother—since mater interpreted philosophically implies materia, and she is altogether immaterial.

   a. 1964, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, “Belphoebe, Amoret, and the Garden of Adonis”, in Alastair Fowler, editor, Spenser’s Image of Life, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 1967, →LCCN, →OCLC, section 3, page 51

   Portable bronze statuettes began to proliferate in mid-15th-century Italy as antique medals, […] With their emphasis on mythological power struggles and sex — Hercules crushing Antaeus was big, as were upright or reclining Venuses and nymphs — the statuettes were also status symbols.

   2014 January 30, Roberta Smith, “The Mythic and Heroic, Just Inches Tall […]”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 Jan 2014

3. A female given name.

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   A mirrored [Venus] Williams, shown from behind and in profile, wears a tennis skirt made of raffia and the Wimbledon trophy dish refashioned as a collared chestplate apropos for a warrior superhero. […] Pruitt sees “a fertile space of reflection” between his two Venuses. “My hope,” he said, “is that the duality of the portrait gives us this sense of a person looking back at themselves, considering where they came from and where they’re going.”

   2022 November 1, Hilarie M. Sheets, “Behind 3 Champions’ Smithsonian Portraits”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Nov 2022

plural Venuses · plural Veneres

1. poeticuncountableotherwise obsoleteSexual activity or intercourse; sex; lust, love.

   Immoderate Venus in excess, as it is a cause, or in defect; so, moderately used, to some parties an only help, a present remedy.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], chapter 2, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2

2. countableartAny depiction of an idealized or erotic figure of a nude woman, especially one in a mythological setting.

   Their figures are universally models for brunette Venuses, and their feet arched like rainbows, and Cinderellan in size.

   1888 May 16, “They Love Americans […]”, in W. H. Canon, editor, Northern Wisconsin News, volume 10, number 19, Merrill, Wis., page [7], column 1

3. broadlycountableAny Upper Palaeolithic statuette portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.

   However, a number of well-crafted studies in recent years have forcefully questioned—and perhaps refuted—the view that the Venuses were simply or solely goddesses.

   1990, D. Bruce Dickson, “An Interpretation”, in The Dawn of Belief: Religion in the Upper Paleolithic of Southwestern Europe, Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, published 1996, →ISBN, page 211

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   While the goddess statues obviously did function in a very public, domestic context, there is no evidence that they were androgynyous or that they were the primary cult of importance. There are probably just as many phalli in the Paleolithic as there are Venuses.

   1986, Brian Hayden, “Old Europe: sacred matriarchy or complementary opposition?”, in Anthony Bonanno, editor, Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean: Papers Presented at the First International Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean, University of Malta, 2–5 September 1985, Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner Publishing Co., →ISBN, I (Prehistory), page 23

   Her proportions, the stylistic elements, the choice of anatomical elements represented are characteristic of the Aurignacian or Gravettian Venuses, known especially from the statuary of Central and Eastern Europe.

   2016, Jean Clottes, “Perceptions of the World, Functions of the Art, and the Artists”, in Oliver Y. Martin, Robert D. Martin, transl., What Is Paleolithic Art?: Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity, Chicago, Ill.; London: The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 148

4. obsoleteuncountablealchemyCopper (a reddish-brown, malleable, ductile metallic element).

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   CRYSTALS of Venus or of copper, called also vitriol of Venus, is copper reduced into the form of vitriol by spirit of nitre, or by dissolving verdegris in good distilled vinegar, till the acid be saturated; it is very caustic and used to eat off proud flesh. It is also used by painters, and manufacturers, and sold under the name of distilled vinegar. See CHEMISTRY.

   1807, A New and Complete Encyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, volume III, page 48

   Another pair of terms which caused some confusion were Spirit of Saturn and Spirit of Venus, names suggesting compounds of lead and copper respectively. Jean Beguin described the preparation from minium and distilled vinegar of a liquid he called burning spirit of Saturn, because it was inflammable and he thought it was a compound of lead. Actually the lead takes no part in the reaction and the product of distilling lead acetate is impure acetone. Beguin’s terminology did not go without comment however, for Christopher Glaser later referred to ‘A burning Spirit of Saturn (as it is called) but rather, a Spirit of the Volatile Salt of Vinegar’. Tachenius referred to the product of distillation of copper acetate as ‘pretended spirit of Venus’ because it was really only distilled vinegar - the meaning which Macquer gave to the expression. It is typical of the confusion of terminology in early chemistry that the London Pharmacopoeia of 1721 gave the name Spiritus Veneris to sulphuric acid obtained by the distillation of copper sulphate.

   2004, Maurice P. Crosland, Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry, page 89

   The association of the heavenly bodies with known metals and also with human organs and destinies goes back to ancient Chaldea, the land of astrologers. In Chaucer’s words: ‘The seven bodies eek, lo hear anon. Sol gold is, and Luna silver we declare; Mars yron, Mercurie is quyksilver; Saturnian leed; and Jubitur is tyn, and Venus coper, by my fathers kyn.’ […] Corresponding names were bestowed upon salts of these metals by the alchemists, and some of them have persisted down to the present day. Some examples are lunar caustic (silver nitrate); vitriol of Venus (copper sulphate); sugar of Saturn (lead acetate); and vitriol of Mars, or Martial vitriol (ferrous sulphate).

   2013, John Read, From Alchemy to Chemistry, page 51