Where does the term "lesbian" come from?Is is associated with the greek island of Lesbos?

by AndyPhoenix
Diodemedes

Linguist here, and incidentally my specialty!

Tl;dr: Yes.

Anyone from Lesbos is technically a Lesbian. The association with female same sex attraction comes from Sappho. She is held in high esteem in the ancient world, and we still find new fragments in private collections or on burial linens. Her most famous poem is "He appears to me, that one, equal to the gods," Sappho 31. It is incomplete, but it is told with the speaker at a wedding. She is looking at the groom with envy because she would rather be marrying the bride.

He appears to me, that one, equal to the gods,

the man who, facing you,

is seated and, up close, that sweet voice of yours

he listens to

And how you laugh your charming laugh. Why it

makes my heart flutter within my breast,

because the moment I look at you, right then, for me,

to make any sound at all won’t work any more.

My tongue has a breakdown and a delicate

— all of a sudden — fire rushes under my skin.

With my eyes I see not a thing, and there is a roar

that my ears make.

Sweat pours down me and a trembling

seizes all of me; paler than grass

am I, and a little short of death

do I appear to me.

But all may be ventured, since even [the poor]...

The term "lesbian" originally was used in 1890 by John Shaw Billings in The national medical dictionary, which the OED defines as " [After the alleged practice of Sappho, the poetess of Lesbos; compare Sapphic adj. and n., Sapphism n.] Of a woman: homosexual, characterized by being sexually attracted to women. Also: of or relating to sexual relations between women." However, in 1870, "lesbianism" is used by

A. J. Munby Diary 2 May in D. Hudson Munby (1972) 283

Swinburne..expressed a horror of sodomy..and an actual admiration of Lesbianism, being unable..to see that that is equally loathsome.

As for "A woman who is sexually attracted to women," according to the OED, that definition first occurs in 1925 by Audrey Huxley.

After a third-rate provincial town, colonized by English sodomites and middle-aged Lesbians, which is, after all, what Florence is, a genuine metropolis will be lively.