venus

name

1. The second planet in the Solar system.

   “Near-synonyms: morning star, Phosphorus, Eosphorus, Lucifer; evening star, Vesper, Hesperus”

   “Venus rises on the 1st day 1/4 to 5 a.m., and 4h. 25m. a.m. on the last day. […] She is now beginning to move northward.”

   “The robot craft, the fifth from the Soviet Union to land on Venus, is a module detached from Venera 13. It plunged through the dense, baking-hot carbon dioxide atmosphere and touched down in the foothills of a mountainous region known as Phoebe, just south of the Venusian equator and also below the active volcanic region of Beta. An identical lander, from Venera 14, is expected to reach Venus Friday and probably put down on the plains east of the Phoebe landing site.”

2. (Roman)The goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and sexuality.

   “Of all the classic Venuses known to us in modern times, this Venus of Milo is certainly the most popular.”

   “To call either or both of them by the name of Venus seems to me too positive; for although the theory of love which they embody was unquestionably associated with the two Venuses in Plato, ‘one draped, the other nude’, it is important to observe that, in contradistinction to Botticelli and Mantegna, Titian endowed the figures with attributes and characters which transcend the mythological idiom.”

   “Now from Ficino’s In Platonis Convivium we learn that for the Neoplatonic philosopher there are two Veneres, not one. The first of these ‘twin Veneres’ is the Venus coelestis, born of Coelus alone, without a mother—since mater interpreted philosophically implies materia, and she is altogether immaterial.”

   “Portable bronze statuettes began to proliferate in mid-15th-century Italy as antique medals, […] With their emphasis on mythological power struggles and sex — Hercules crushing Antaeus was big, as were upright or reclining Venuses and nymphs — the statuettes were also status symbols.”

3. A female given name.

   “A mirrored [Venus] Williams, shown from behind and in profile, wears a tennis skirt made of raffia and the Wimbledon trophy dish refashioned as a collared chestplate apropos for a warrior superhero. […] Pruitt sees “a fertile space of reflection” between his two Venuses. “My hope,” he said, “is that the duality of the portrait gives us this sense of a person looking back at themselves, considering where they came from and where they’re going.””

noun

1. (poetic, uncountable)Sexual activity or intercourse; sex; lust, love.

   “Immoderate Venus in excess, as it is a cause, or in defect; so, moderately used, to some parties an only help, a present remedy.”

2. (obsolete, uncountable)Copper (a reddish-brown, malleable, ductile metallic element).

   “CRYSTALS of Venus or of copper, called also vitriol of Venus, is copper reduced into the form of vitriol by spirit of nitre, or by dissolving verdegris in good distilled vinegar, till the acid be saturated; it is very caustic and used to eat off proud flesh. It is also used by painters, and manufacturers, and sold under the name of distilled vinegar. See CHEMISTRY.”

3. (countable)Any depiction of an idealized or erotic figure of a nude woman, especially one in a mythological setting.

   “Their figures are universally models for brunette Venuses, and their feet arched like rainbows, and Cinderellan in size.”

4. (countable)Any Upper Palaeolithic statuette portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.

   “While the goddess statues obviously did function in a very public, domestic context, there is no evidence that they were androgynyous or that they were the primary cult of importance. There are probably just as many phalli in the Paleolithic as there are Venuses.”

   “However, a number of well-crafted studies in recent years have forcefully questioned—and perhaps refuted—the view that the Venuses were simply or solely goddesses.”

   “Her proportions, the stylistic elements, the choice of anatomical elements represented are characteristic of the Aurignacian or Gravettian Venuses, known especially from the statuary of Central and Eastern Europe.”

5. Any of the bivalve molluscs in the genus Venus or family Veneridae.