frigidity

[fri-jid-i-tee]

noun

1. the state or condition of being frigid.

2. (in women) inhibition, not caused by a physical disorder or medication, of sexual excitement during sexual activity.

Other Word Forms

• nonfrigidity noun
• unfrigidity noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of frigidity¹

1400–50; late Middle English frigidite coldness (< Middle French fregidité ) < Late Latin frīgiditās; frigid, -ity

Example Sentences

With searing yet quiet familiarity, Victor derides the way trauma is handled with callous frigidity.

From Salon

Her paternal grandfather, a sexologist, invented a device called “the frigidity machine,” designed to “unlock the primal libidinal energy” and cure the world’s ills.

From Los Angeles Times

"The help of such specialists is necessary if a person wants to recover from frigidity, impotence, or such violations of sexual behaviour as fetishism, masochism and sadism," the official newspaper of Russia's parliament said.

From Reuters

She set up a private practice and specialized in treating women afflicted with what she would call one of the “gravest problems of our time”: sexual frigidity.

From Scientific American

But despite having arrived at the inner suburbs of the coming season, Friday offered few clues to the days of frost and frigidity that experience and meteorology have located in our not-far-off future.

From Washington Post