Anybody know what a merkin is?

Question

Word origin from early 1900's

Answer 1

Really? I thought it was a fish!

Answer 2

A merkin (first use, according to the OED, 1617) is reported to be a pubic wig, worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to eliminate lice or to disguise the marks of syphilis. A similar claim (not made in OED) is that merkins were worn for nude stage appearances. There are many different ways of wearing a "Merkin" mainly on the vulva or the scrotum.

The narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955) recalls "Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, an animated merkin, what really attracted me to Valeria was the imitation she gave of a little girl." This, the first appearance of the word by an established author, demonstrates that "merkin" is not merely an undergraduate prank of the 1950s [1]. Pynchon, in Gravity's Rainbow, says, "He wears a false **** and merkin of sable both handcrafted...by the notorious Mme. Ophir" while the character of President Merkin Muffley in Stanley Kubrick's black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is satirically named after this object.

Answer 3

A crotch wig.