sheela-na-gig

From Irish Síle na gcíoch (“Julia of the breasts”). Attested in English from the 19th century.

sheela-na-gig (plural sheela-na-gigs)

1. A carving of a naked woman with an exaggerated vulva, found in old British and Irish architecture, perhaps used to ward off death and evil.

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “sheela-na-gig”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.