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herm

[ hurm ]

noun

  1. a monument consisting of a four-sided shaft tapering inward from top to bottom and bearing a head or bust; those of Hermes usually had an erect penis, which passersby stroked for luck.


herm

/ hɜːm; ˈhɜːmə /

noun

  1. (in ancient Greece) a stone head of Hermes surmounting a square stone pillar
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of herm1

1570–80; < Latin hermēs < Greek hermês statue of Hermes
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Word History and Origins

Origin of herm1

C16: from Latin herma, from Greek hermēs Hermes 1
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Example Sentences

Publicly displayed for the first time, the tripod’s legs are adorned with carved ivory bas-reliefs of cupids cavorting around herms, boundary markers of stone pillars with human heads.

A herm’s original apotropaic function as a statue to ward off evil is here colonized by traditional femininity — and now runs gleefully amok.

He used repurposed wood masts from ships, beams from old waterfront buildings and 19th-century stencils found in his loft to make a series of enigmatic assemblages that he called herms, after the classical figures.

Five, dubbed “amorphous herms,” have only heads atop plaster pillars.

Photograph: Dulwich Picture Gallery Poussin, The Triumph of PanRevellers spin and gyre round a red-faced herm, the statue coming to monstrous life as wine flushes its cheeks.

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