Sodomize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To force another person into anal intercourse, which is a serious sexual crime in most legal systems
2. To subject someone to anal sex without consent, an act of sexual violence and assault
3. To carry out non-consensual anal penetration on another individual as a form of sexual abuse

Etymology: Sodomize is a deliberately built word: "Sodom" (the city from the Hebrew Bible, whose name became a byword for wickedness) combined with the suffix "-ize". The suffix has a long lineage of its own. It began in ancient Greek as "-izein", a verb-forming ending, passed through Late Latin as "-izare", and reached English through Middle French and Middle English before "-ize" became the productive form it is today. Because the suffix is so flexible, English speakers have used it freely to turn names and nouns into verbs, which is why "sodomize" sits comfortably beside words built the same way. The base, "Sodom", reaches English through the Bible itself, so the word combines a place name from scripture with a Greek-derived verb ending that arrived via Latin and French.