Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Relating to or having buttocks that are considered beautifully proportioned.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having beautifully shaped buttocks.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective pertaining to or having finely developed buttocks

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Greek kallipugos : kalli-, beautiful (from kallos, beauty) + pugē, buttocks.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek καλλίπυγος (kallipugos), from καλλι- (kalli-, "beautiful") + πυγή (pugē, "buttocks").

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Examples

  • I love you forever for not only knowing the word callipygian, but using it correctly in a sentance. *applause*

    Regretsy – Whitewash 2010

  • Also, to use the word callipygian in my Sex Alliances Against Society

    King Dork by Frank Portman Abigail Nussbaum 2006

  • I admit my soft spot for callipygian is mostly because I learned it, via temvald, from the Fucking Little Hobbit (a philosphy prof at the 'Ford, not someone's Billy Boyd fantasy).

    June 12th, 2004 temvald 2004

  • Almost three centuries before Beyoncé boasted herself "bootylicious", one with an ample behind might have best been described as "callipygian".

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

  • He rather belabors the point on those occasions when Tom experiences empathy for others an emotion which he describes as feeling sorry for himself while pretending to be someone else, and really, Portman is being more than a little disingenuous when a kid whose vocabulary includes the word 'callipygian' can't put a name to empathy when he experiences it.

    King Dork by Frank Portman Abigail Nussbaum 2006

  • He rather belabors the point on those occasions when Tom experiences empathy for others an emotion which he describes as feeling sorry for himself while pretending to be someone else, and really, Portman is being more than a little disingenuous when a kid whose vocabulary includes the word 'callipygian' can't put a name to empathy when he experiences it.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Abigail Nussbaum 2006

  • Demant's utterly unique paintings are characterized by glamorous callipygian nudes, captive avian flocks, bloody images of sexual dominance, and the emotionally fraught — yet whimsical — lighting and landscapes associated with fairy tales.

    A Turkey Day dance recital marshallpayne1 2009

  • He also would have admired Swihart's recent paintings: callipygian female nudes, with no traces of visible brushwork.

    John Seed: Jon Swihart: Jean-Leon Gerome Is His Master 2010

  • Clearly it is a picture of a callipygian women bending over.

    Regretsy – Whitewash 2010

  • The Brooklyn-based magazine is hardly alone in its appreciation of callipygian cover models: Rolling Stone gave the world Jennifer Aniston's rump in March 1996 (not to mention Jim Carrey's pasty posterior a year before) and men's magazines like Smooth seem to exist solely to allow photographers to dream up new angles for capturing the curvature of models 'gluteus maximi.

    The Vice Guide To Covers: 'Butts Are Kinda Safe' 2009

Comments

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  • Can't go wrong with words about butts.

    January 17, 2007

  • I like big words and I cannot lie!

    January 22, 2007

  • All you other linguists can't deny.

    February 1, 2007

  • Word of the day

    February 13, 2007

  • god is it painful, though.

    February 13, 2007

  • What a great word. So useful too!

    June 27, 2007

  • Especially when describing me.

    June 27, 2007

  • What can beat a word that is both dirty and high-brow at the same time?

    March 2, 2008

  • more usually callipygean, sometimes callipygous.

    = beautifully buttocked

    July 20, 2008

  • "I wouldn't fuck her with my own ass." - Tourette's Guy

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IcZbluiA1s

    July 31, 2008

  • Is Aphrodite Kallipygia the eponyme, then?

    August 7, 2008

  • See also cacopygian.

    August 7, 2008

  • What other words can I use to compliment a woman on her figure without being slapped?

    September 7, 2008

  • Why not compliment her on her personality?

    September 7, 2008

  • Hmm... You could say she's attractive, beautiful, healthy, glowing... I'm guessing these aren't the words you had in mind, though. ;)

    September 7, 2008

  • best word ever

    February 11, 2009

  • oh my gosh I love it!

    February 12, 2009

  • "The human bottom is made up of the gluteal muscles (the gluteus maximus and medius) upholstered by a layer of fat; a layer, alas, more significant in some than others.

    It is a practical device which offers us primates a natural cushion on which to sit upright.

    And just as female baboons sport enflamed scarlet backsides to ensnare their mates, so the human female's buttocks are likely to be wider and thicker than her paramour's, the better to beguile him.

    Two centuries before the term 'bootylicious' entered the modern mainstream, 18th-century English had 'callipygian'.

    The term was derived from the statue of the Venus Kallipygos, in which a partially draped woman raises her robes, glancing behind her to assess the perfection of her rear.

    This type of Hellenistic sculpture was believed to be inspired by the myth of two Syracusian sisters, farmer's daughters, whose impeccably shapely hindquarters won them wealthy husbands."

    - Betts, Hannah; 'As Kate Winslet goes naked on the big screen, Femail launches the great derriere debate: What DOES make the perfect female bottom?'

    August 5, 2009

  • oh. my. god. becky! look at her word for fine butt. it is so big!

    August 6, 2009

  • I mean, it's gross! Just look at it, it's so... round!

    August 6, 2009

  • Quentin the quakebuttocked quail says: "better to be callipygian than pigeonpygian".

    August 6, 2009

  • Or worse, hemipygian.

    August 6, 2009

  • I posted my little poem with interstice, but it belongs here too I think:

    We were gazing all along

    her imbedded yellow thong,

    until sweet Lily cursed us

    --for adoring her interstice

    November 7, 2009

  • It matters not a man’s religion –

    Joy-illumined or grimly stygian.

    A well-turned rump

    Is piety’s trump.

    Temptation’s shape is callipygian.

    July 2, 2014

  • (adjective) - Of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks. The name of a famous statue of Venus. From Greek kallos, beauty, and pyg, buttocks.

    --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893

    January 16, 2018