cunning linguist
- noun
- Offensive
:
experto en cunnilingus (vulgar)
- Did you hear about her skills? She's a true cunning linguist!
Examples
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She called him a cunning linguist in a cheeky text, clearly referring to his bedroom reputation.
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The bar's flyer used the phrase cunning linguist as a risqué pun to advertise the themed karaoke night.
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Onstage, the comedian bragged that he's a cunning linguist, and the audience broke into embarrassed laughter.
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He's known as a real cunning linguist among his friends.
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During the party, his friends playfully called him a cunning linguist after he made a series of clever innuendos.
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In her article, she humorously referred to him as a cunning linguist because of his talent for flirting with words.
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At the comedy club, the host introduced a performer as a cunning linguist, eliciting laughter from the audience.
How Skilled
- Offensive
3
3.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although the literal combination of 'cunning' (clever) + 'linguist' would yield 'a clever language scholar,' the actual colloquial meaning is a phonetic pun on 'cunnilingus' and refers to sexual skill. This meaning depends on sound-play and cultural/slang knowledge rather than compositional semantics, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not predict the intended sense.
Etymology
The phrase cunning linguist is also a cheeky 'slang' joke because it sounds like the word 'cunnilingus', a word for a sexual act. So people use it as a playful way to call someone 'skilled in sexual activity'.