Tribad

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. A woman who engages in sexual contact with another woman by friction of the genitals
2. A female participant in a form of lesbian sexual activity involving direct genital contact
3. A woman who practices intimate sexual contact with another woman through genital friction

Etymology: In ancient Greek, "tribas" was built from "tribein," meaning "to rub" or "to wear down," so the literal sense was something like "one who rubs." The Greek noun was used of women, and it reached Latin as "tribas." Roman writers such as Martial used it as a pointed term for women they considered sexually transgressive. The English form, "tribade," was adopted from Latin and French, and English writers used it for the same reputation, often in works that treated it as a curiosity or a scandal. The word carried its physical origin into that meaning: the rubbing in the Greek root was the basis of the insult. Because the term was rarely used in everyday speech, its meanings were shaped mostly by the writers who chose it, and it is now mainly found in historical and scholarly texts.