# succubus

Pronunciation: say "SUK-yuu-buhs" /ˈsʌk.jʊ.bəs/

## Noun

1. A female demon of medieval folklore who comes to men, especially monks, in dreams to seduce and have sex with them, draining their energy to sustain itself, often until exhaustion or death.
   - Simple: In old stories, an evil female spirit who visits men in dreams for sex and steals their strength.
   - _Brother Anselm confessed that a succubus had visited him in his sleep, and by spring he was too weak to leave his bed._
   - _Medieval preachers warned that incubi and succubi preyed on sleepers who neglected their prayers._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A contemptuous word for a prostitute, a woman who is paid for sex.

## Origin

The word began as Late Latin succuba ("strumpet," especially a mythical female demon who lies with sleeping men), which medieval Latin reshaped as succubus on the model of the masculine incubus. Succuba itself comes from Latin succubo ("to lie under"), built from sub- ("under") and cubare ("to lie down").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/succubus (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).