Sodomizes

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Engages in anal intercourse with another person, usually against their will in cases of sexual assault
2. Performs the sexual act of penetrating another person's anus with the penis
3. Commits anal sexual intercourse, a form of sexual contact that is often coerced when described in legal contexts

Etymology: Sodomize is a plain formation: the place name Sodom, the city in the Hebrew Bible, plus the suffix "-ize". That suffix has a long pedigree. It passed from ancient Greek into Late Latin and then into Middle French, where it took the form "-iser", before reaching English, and it became the productive way to turn nouns into verbs meaning "to make into, treat like, or subject to" the noun's character. The verb, then, carries the story of Sodom itself. The Biblical city is the namesake, and the act the verb names is tied to the biblical account of the city's destruction, which is where the word's meaning comes from. Because the suffix is so ordinary, the word reads as a neat technical coinage, but its core content is entirely borrowed from that single place name.