Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Pierced |
PiercedAdjective1. Having a hole cut through; "pierced ears"; "a perforated eardrum"; "a punctured balloon". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "pierced" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Body piercing is a form of body modification. It involves piercing a part of the human body and subsequently inserting and keeping a foreign object in the opening until the wound heals. This forms a tunnel of skin around the foreign object, thus creating a suitable place for wearing different types of jewelry. The term "piercing" also often refers to this jewelry. One example of the process is the common ear piercing. This procedure is so simple and mainstream that some people do not even think of it as body piercing.The practice is common among many indigenous peoples, but was almost unknown in industrialized civilizations until the mid 1970s. Some cultures practice piercing as part of religious traditions. In industrialized countries, most piercing is performed for ornamental or sexual reasons.
Piercing the body carries with it a number of risks, most notably the risk of infection and the risk of delayed healing. The risk of infection varies; good sterile practice greatly reduces it, whereas the risk is considerable with "do-it-yourself" piercing. An infection in the cartilage of the upper ear or of the earlobe, can lead to a permanent lump called a keloid. All piercing sites should be kept clean until they are healed. The piercing healing time (see below) varies depending on what sort of piercing has been performed.
The Origins of Piercing
Piercing has ancient origins. The oldest mummified body in the world discovered in an Austrian glacier was found to have ear-piercing 7-11 mm in diameter. Nose piercing is mentioned in the Bible. In Genesis 24:22 Abraham gave a nose-ring to Rebekah, wife of his son Isaac. Nose piercing reached India in the 16th century and rapidly became accepted. Tongue piercing was popular with the elite of Aztec and Maya civilization; it was carried out as part of a religious ceremony of ritual blood letting, not to insert jewelry. Ancient Mesoamericans did pierce ears, nose, and lower lips for jewelry. In Dreamtime by Hans Peter Duerr, it is claimed that nipple piercing became popular in 14th century Europe. On many websites it is claimed that the Romans invented nipple piercing and that soldiers attached their capes to the piercings. This is just a myth and in reality the capes were hung from rings attached to their armor.
Piercing in Industrialized Civilizations
In the United States, ear piercing for females was long the only common piercing. Other body piercings were popularized by Jim Ward and his piercing shop, The Gauntlet, which opened in 1975 in Los Angeles.
Some regard body piercing as a kind of artistic expression, others as a form of sexual expression and/or stimulation. Genital piercings are some of the most common, and some piercers report that the Prince Albert piercing is the most popular of all. Many wearers of genital piercings keep their jewelry in during sexual intercourse and other sexual activities, but others find it uncomfortable. It depends to a large degree on the design of the jewelry and the type of sexual activity.
In the United Kingdom, decorative piercings are legal but those done in a sexual context are not. In R v Brown 1994 the court held that sado-masochistic piercing was "violent" and "cruel", and that there was no public interest in allowing people to consent to it.
Types of Piercings
Facial Piercings:
Body Piercings:
- nose piercing
- nostril piercing
- septum piercing
- ear piercing
- lip piercing
- cheek piercing
- tongue piercing
- bridge piercing
- brow piercing
Male Genital Piercings:
- male and female nipple piercing
- navel piercing
Female Genital Piercings:
- apadrayva piercing
- ampallang piercing
- Prince Albert piercing
- frenum piercing
- Guiche piercing
- Dydoe piercing
Specialty Jewelery:
- horizontal and vertical hood piercing
- inner and outer labia piercing
- clit piercing
- christina piercing
- Princess Albertina
- triangle piercing
- Prince's Wand
Healing Times
Different types of piercing take different amount of times to heal. Below is a rough guide to the times taken for some different types of body piercing to heal.
- nostril piercing (6-12 months)
- septum piercing (6-8 weeks)
- ear piercing - lobe (6-8 weeks)
- ear piercing - cartilage (2-4 months)
- lip piercing (8-10 weeks)
- cheek piercing (10-12 weeks)
- tongue piercing (4-6 weeks)
- bridge piercing (8-10 weeks)
- nipple piercing male (2-4 months)
- nipple piercing female (4-6 months)
- navel piercing (6 months)
Famous People Who Have/Promote Body Piercings
- Joan Osbourne (nostril piercing)
- Fakir Musafar
- Bob Flanigan
- Shannon Larratt aka glider, founder of BME
External links
Body Modification eZine - oldest piercing website Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Body piercing."
Synonyms: PiercedSynonyms: perforate (adj), perforated (adj), punctured (adj). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Pierced |
| English words defined with "pierced": Bell gable ♦ cancellate, cancellated, clathrate, Cribriform ♦ Dead-eye ♦ Impierceable ♦ Light barrel ♦ perfoliate, perfoliate leaf, Pertusate, Pertused, Pierce, Pierceable, Pinked, puncture ♦ Ravenala madagascariensis ♦ self-sealing, Spitted, stabbed ♦ through, Transfixion ♦ Ungored, unpierced. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "pierced": air brick, Apostles, AUTOMOTIVE-TIRE TESTER ♦ centrifugal drying machine, centrifugal hydro-extractor ♦ dead eye, diaphragma sellae, drainage hole, drying machine ♦ extruder die ♦ hydroextractor ♦ Javelin ♦ Knight of the Bleeding Heart ♦ LABORER, AMMUNITION ASSEMBLY II, limber hole ♦ NAIL-ASSEMBLY-MACHINE OPERATOR ♦ rotary-bar operator ♦ SEAMLESS-TUBE ROLLER, seamless-tube-mill operator, SHELL ASSEMBLER, shwisser, storm ladder ♦ to kill silk cocoons, to smother silk cocoons, tube roller ♦ whuzzer, wusser. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "pierced": Nostril. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Well, yeah, when I was 10, I got my ear pierced. But this is completely different (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) It was killed by a virtuous knight who pierced the demon's heart before it could draw breath to perform the act. Acathla turned to stone, as demons sometimes do, and was buried where neither man nor demon would be wont to look (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) You know how fads are. Today it's brains, tomorrow, pierced tongues (Daria; writing credit: Glenn Eichler; Peggy Nicoll) Oh God, I pierced the toast (The Birdcage; writing credit: Jean Poiret; Francis Veber) She's got her spine pierced. (Tenacious D; writing credit: Masato Ochi) | |
Lyrics | Billy pierced his ears, drove a pickup like a lunatic, ooh (YOUNG TURKS; performing artist: Rod Stewart) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Robert Having His Nipple Pierced (1971) Pierced Tongue (1994) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
 |
| "Mr Pierced" by Aytun Çelebi Commentary: "A close shoot to a pierced body." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Hosea Ballou | Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams. |
Rita Rudner | I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | The words of this indifferent man had alternately pierced his heart like icicles and like flames of fire |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | A long fine needle of the shivered glass pierced her heart |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | She placed the cork and pierced the other ear. |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | He spoke often to me, but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a water mill, yet his words were articulate enough |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Pierced" is generally used as a lexical verb (past tense) -- approximately 44.40% of the time. "Pierced" is used about 259 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (past tense) | 44.4% | 115 | 30,138 |
| Lexical Verb (past participle) | 41.31% | 107 | 31,463 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 14.29% | 37 | 56,631 |
| Total | 100.00% | 259 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "pierced": be pierced ♦ pierced ear slave ♦ pierced right through. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "pierced": iron-pierced, torchbeam-pierced. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
pierced | 600 | pierced genitals | 25 |
pierced nipples | 576 | model pierced | 23 |
pierced clit | 230 | pierced nipple picture | 21 |
pierced pussy | 169 | pierced belly button picture | 19 |
pierced ear | 110 | pierced celebrity | 18 |
pierced nipple | 85 | pierced lip | 17 |
pierced tongue | 81 | pierced nipple pic | 16 |
pierced labia | 73 | female pierced nipples | 16 |
pierced tit | 71 | pierced teen | 16 |
belly button pierced | 57 | penis picture pierced | 15 |
pierced clitoris | 55 | pierced female | 15 |
pierced penis | 52 | pierced navel | 15 |
pierced woman | 46 | pierced sluts | 15 |
pierced girl | 45 | pierced belly | 15 |
pierced cock | 41 | pierced clit picture | 14 |
aguilera christina does have her pierced tit | 37 | pierced boob | 14 |
pierced vagina | 34 | pierced breast | 14 |
pierced dick | 30 | pierced porn star | 14 |
pierced nose | 30 | pierced nipple jewelry | 13 |
pierced body jewelry | 29 | pierced cunt | 13 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "pierced"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 刺穿 (IMPALE, Impaled, Impaling, Pierce). (various references) | |
Danish | knap med huller (pierced button), gennemboret kontraventil af svingtypen (pierced swing type check valve). (various references) | |
Dutch | knoop met gaten (pierced button), doorgeboorde terugslagklep (pierced swing type check valve). (various references) | |
French | cocon défectueux (pierced cocoon), clapet percé (pierced swing type check valve), bouton à trous (pierced button). (various references) | |
German | durchdrang (permeated, pervaded), durchbohrt (pierces). (various references) | |
Greek | διάτρητοσ (drilled, perforate). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מנוקב (perforated, punched). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kebobolan (cought unawares, penetration), berbolong-bolong. (various references) | |
Italian | perforare (be pierced, bore, drill, perforate, pick, Pierce, punch, sink, tap), clapet forato (pierced swing type check valve), bottone forato (pierced button). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ビル風 (binding, bingo, eddies of wind around high buildings, foot fastening, green pepper, pea coat, pea jacket, peace, peach, peacock, peahen, peak, peanut, peanut butter, peanuts, peas, peek, peep show, Peeping Tom, people, people's capitalism, Peter Pan syndrome, Piaget, pianica, pianist, piano, piano and harmonica, piazza, piece, piecework, piercer, pimento, PR, public relations, Russian food, velvet, village, vintage, vintage year). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ピアス . (various references) | |
Korean | 관통하는 (Penetrated). (various references) | |
Manx | thiollit (bored, perforated, pitted), broddit (jabbed, poked, probed, roused, stung). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | iercedpay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | botão perfurado (pierced button). (various references) | |
Romanian | gãurit (holey, out at). (various references) | |
Russian | прокалывать проколотый (punctured). (various references) | |
Spanish | clapeta reguladora (pierced swing type check valve), clapeta de registro (pierced swing type check valve), boton con agujeros (pierced button). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | John Chapter 19, Verse 37 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | Kai palin etera grafh legei oyontai eiV on exekenthsan |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Et iterum alia scriptura dicit videbunt in quem transfixerunt |
| Old English | 990 | West Saxon | Hyo ge-sæwen on hwane hyo on-fæstneden. |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | And eftsoone another scripture seith, Thei schulen se in whom thei piyten thorow. |
| Renaissance English | 1526 | Tyndale | And agayne another scripture sayth: They shall looke on him whom they pearsed. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | And again another verse says, They will see him who was wounded by their spears. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | John Chapter 19, Verse 37 |
| Cebuano | Ug usab ang laing bahin sa kasulatan nagaingon, "Ilang pagatan-awon siya nga ilang gidughang." |
| Chinese | 經 上 又 有 一 句 說 、 『 他 們 要 仰 望 自 己 所 扎 的 人 。 』 |
| Croatian | I drugo opet Pismo veli: Gledat æe onoga koga su proboli. |
| Danish | Og atter et andet Skriftord siger: "De skulle se hen til ham, hvem de have gennemstunget." |
| Dutch | En wederom zegt een andere Schrift: Zij zullen zien, in Welken zij gestoken hebben. |
| Finnish | Ja vielä sanoo toinen kirjoitus: "He luovat katseensa häneen, jonka he ovat lävistäneet". |
| French | Et ailleurs l`Écriture dit encore: Ils verront celui qu`ils ont percé. |
| German | Und abermals spricht eine andere Schrift: "Sie werden sehen, in welchen sie gestochen haben." |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Di dalam Alkitab juga tertulis: "Mereka akan memandang Dia yang sudah mereka tikam". |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Dan ada pula nas Alkitab mengatakan: Mereka itu akan memandang Dia, yang telah ditikamnya. |
| Italian | E un altro passo della Scrittura dice ancora: Volgeranno lo sguardo a colui che hanno trafitto. |
| Maori | E mea ana ano tetahi atu karaipiture, ka titiro ratou ki ta ratou i wero ai. |
| Norwegian | Og atter sier et annet skriftord: De skal se på ham som de har gjennemstunget. |
| Portuguese | Também há outra escritura que diz: Olharão para aquele que traspassaram. |
| Rumanian | Wi kn altq parte, Scriptura mai zice: ,,Vor vedea pe cine au strqpuns.`` |
| Shuar | Tura chikichcha: "Ijiuarmiania nuna Wáinkiartatui" tu aarmaiti. |
| Spanish | También otra Escritura dice: Mirarán al que traspasaron. |
| Swahili | Tena Maandiko mengine yanasema: "Watamtazama yule waliyemtoboa." |
| Swedish | Och åter ett annat skriftens ord lyder så: "De skola se upp till honom som de hava stungit." |
| Uma | Ria wo'o lolita Buku Tomoroli' to mpo'uli': "Hira' mpongoa' -i mpai' to rajalo owi." |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words ending with "pierced": transpierced. (additional references) | |
| |
"Pierced" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Bierce, Peerce, pierc, Piercea, Piercie, pierside, Pigreco. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "pierced" (pronounced pi"rst) |
| 3 | -r s t | divorced, endorsed, enforced, forced, Horst, karst, reinforced, unenforced, unhorsed. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-d-e-e-i-p-r" | |
-1 letter: creped, deicer, perdie, pieced, piecer, pierce, priced, recipe. | |
-2 letters: ceder, cered, cider, creed, creep, crepe, cried, cripe, deice, dicer, eider, piece, preed, price, pride, pried, redip, riced, riped. | |
-3 letters: cede, cedi, cepe, cere, cire, deep, deer, dere, dice, dire, dree, drip, eide, epic, iced, ired, peed, peer, peri, pice, pied, pier, pree, rede. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-d-e-e-i-p-r" | |
+1 letter: ciphered, decipher, decrepit, depicter, pedicure, precised, precited, premedic, recopied, repriced. | |
+2 letters: calipered, chippered, crispened, deciphers, depicters, epidermic, pedicured, pedicures, perceived, pickeered, preceding, predicate, predicted, prejudice, premedics, prenticed, prepriced, presliced, receipted, respliced. | |
+3 letters: callipered, crepitated, deciphered, decipherer, decrepitly, depreciate, disrespect, enciphered, fireplaced, imprecated, imprudence, necropsied, overpriced, pederastic, prechilled, predicable, predicated, predicates, predictive, prejudiced, prejudices, premedical, prescinded, prescribed, presidency, probenecid, proceeding, providence, recompiled, reoccupied, repacified, replicated, spermicide, underprice. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Bible Trace 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
