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Eunuch

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eunuch

[′yü·nik]
(medicine)
An individual who has undergone complete loss of testicular function.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

eunuch

castrated guardian of Eastern harems. [Arab. Culture: Jobes, I, 530–531]
See: Guardianship
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Eunuch

 

a castrated man appointed to oversee a harem. Eunuchs were known among the ancient Assyrians and Persians, in Byzantium, and later among the Turks. Because they were on intimate terms with their masters, eunuchs at the courts of Eastern potentates often attained high standing and became privy councillors in state affairs.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
Luke's story in Acts 8 responds to both Isaiah and Jeremiah; the pilgrim's baptism washes away his supposedly unregenerate conditions of eunuchism and blackness.
In the 1500s Erasmus collected the adages Aethiopem lavas ("you are washing an Ethiope") and Aethiopem dealbare ("to whiten an Ethiope"); he declared the phrases "particularly apposite when a matter of doubtful morality is decorated by a gloss of words, or when praise is given to one who does not deserve praise, or an unteachable person is being taught" and later added a version of the fable, commenting that "that which is inborn is not easily altered." (27) And from the 1600s John Bulwer and Charles Ancillon returned to the topic of eunuchism, tracing it to the reign of Sammu-ramat in the ninth century BC.
"Best play with Mardian": eunuch and blackamoor as imperial culturegram
There was, however, a very dark side to the practise of eunuchism in the Capital Region.
BANDITRY AND THE SUBVERSION OF STATE AUTHORITY IN CHINA: THE CAPITAL REGION DURING THE MIDDLE MING PERIOD (1450-1525)
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