etymology - Where does English get the word “condom” from?


Although once a word that dared not speak its name, thanks to popular-culture references as well as the devastating AIDS tragedy, condom seems to be on everyone’s lips these days.


But does anybody really know where the word condom (BrE /(ˈ)kɒndɒm/, AmE /ˈkɑnd(ə)m/) ultimately comes from?


The OED says:



Etymology: Origin unknown; no 18th-cent. physician named Condom or Conton has been traced though a doctor so named is often said to be the inventor of the sheath.



It is probably a coïncidence that it first appeared in the same century as shag, as the device surely predates the word. It just must have been called something else back then.


Even if you allow that trees can be barked, folk etymologies related to an apocopation of condominium, amusing though they may sometimes be (particularly as blue punch-lines), seem to be barking up the wrong tree.


So where do we anglophones (and others?) get the modern word condom from?



Answer



A likely origin of the word could be latin condere that means to hide/to keep safe. I've found two references pointing to that, it all gets back to that commercial site. Not a scientific source but sounds likely so I'm risking an answer.


I'll sum up briefly one short passage of this long article. A craftsman from Utrecht decided to make those little devices out of mutton intestine because of venereal deceases spreading quickly among the diplomats during the Congress of Utrecht that lasted several months. The British diplomats brought back several of those little devices with them. They started being made on a large scale and the name condom (from latin condere) given to them.


Maybe the question could be brought to history.stackexchange ?


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