kouros means A sculpture of a naked youth in Ancient Greece, the male equivalent of a kore. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
kouros is pronounced /ˈkuːɹɒs/.
Why “kouros” is a great word
KOUROS — [Noun] A free-standing, monolithic sculpture of a nude male youth from Archaic Greece, embodying an athletic and idealized form rather than a specific individual. From Ionic Ancient Greek κοῦρος (koûros), a variant of Attic κόρος (kóros, "boy, youth, especially of noble rank"). Unlike a kore (its draped female counterpart) or an "Apollo" (a representation of a specific deity), the kouros is an archetypal votive or funerary figure of anonymous, aristocratic perfection. It is the rigid geometry of a forward-stepping stance in sun-bleached marble; the archaic smile carved as immutable as a law; and the polished planes of the torso where the light of the Aegean sun first learned to slide over stone—a silent, perfect youth, a monument not to a person but to the very possibility of perfection, standing sentinel at the dawn of Western art.
Etymology
From Ionic Ancient Greek κοῦρος (koûros), variant of Attic κόρος (kóros, “boy”).
noun
- A sculpture of a naked youth in Ancient Greece, the male equivalent of a kore.“A redstone kouros from Sounion, this strapping young Amsterdammer, translated into the slenderer grace of the modern graminivore.”