From Proto-Italic *kūlos, from Proto-Indo-European *kuH-l-, zero-grade form of *(s)kewH- (“to cover”) without s-mobile.

Cognates include Old Irish cúl (“bottom”), Lithuanian kẽvalas (“skin, cover”). Related to cutis (“hide”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkuː.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkuː.lus]

cūlus m (genitive cūlī); second declension

1. (vulgar, anatomy) The posterior, arse, ass, buttocks
   • c. 84 BCE – 54 BCE, Catullus, Carmina 97, (translation adapted by H.J.Walker, which can be viewed here):

     Non (ita me di ament) quicquam referre putaui,
     utrumne os an culum olfacerem Aemilio.

     I swear by the gods, I didn't think it mattered one straw,
     whether I sniffed Aemilius's head or his arse.

2. (vulgar, anatomy) The anus

Second-declension noun.

• cūlō
• cūlōsus

• “culus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “culus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "culus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• culus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

culus

1. heavy