From Greek kallípugos (καλλίπυγος) — 'beautiful-buttocked', an epithet of Aphrodite from kállos (beauty) + pugḗ (buttocks). Coined in English as a scholarly Hellenism for art criticism. Same kállos root as calligraphy and calisthenics.
Having beautifully shaped buttocks.
From Greek 'kallipúgos' (καλλίπυγος), a compound of 'kallí-' (καλλι-, combining form of 'kállos', 'beauty') + 'pugḗ' (πυγή, 'buttocks, rump'). The word was originally an epithet of Aphrodite — 'Aphrodítē Kallípugos' ('Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks') — referring to a famous lost Greek statue, later known through a Roman marble copy called the Venus Callipyge (now in the Naples National Archaeological Museum). Greek 'kállos' derives from PIE *kal- ('beautiful'), which also produced Latin 'calēre' ('to be warm, glow') and may be distantly related to Old English 'hǣlan' ('to heal'). Greek 'pugḗ' is from PIE *puǵ- ('buttock, rump'). The English adjective 'callipygian' (or 'callipygous') was
The word exists because of a tale in Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae (c. 200 CE): two sisters in Syracuse argued over which had the more beautiful rear. They stopped a passing young man to judge. He chose the elder; his brother chose the younger. Both brothers married the sisters, who became so famous that the townspeople built a