The Many Synonyms of Cuckold

One of the more glaring inequities of the English language is that it has a significantly larger number of words for “a man whose wife is unfaithful” than it does for “a woman whose man is unfaithful.” Cuckold is perhaps the best known of these words, and it has many synonyms, including (but by no means restricted to) cornute, cornuto, hoddy-doddy, hoddypoll, horn, ram, and wittol (a man who is aware of his wife’s infidelity and acquiesces to it). What of a woman whose husband is unfaithful? For that our language appears to have but a single word, and an obscure one at that: cuckquean.