Condom

A condom is a sheath-shaped barrier device used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection.

• The Condum being the best, if not the only Preservative our Libertines have found out at present... yet, by reason of its blunting the Sensation, I have heard some of them acknowledge, that they had often chose to risque a Clap, rather than engage cum Hastis sic clypeatis [with spears thus sheathed].
  • Daniel Turner, Syphilis (1717), p. 74; quoted by Norman Edwin Himes, Medical History of Contraception (1936), p. 190

• Armour against enjoyment, and a spider web against danger.
  • Madame de Sévigné, in letters written to her daughter, the Countess of Grignan, round about 1671; quoted by Rustam J. Mehta, Scientific Curiosities of Sex Life (1912), p. 317

• Birth control