codpiece

noun

1. (historical)A part of male dress in the 15th and 16th centuries, worn in front of the breeches to cover the male genitals.

   “, Act III, Scene III, line 130. Borachio: Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is, how giddily ’a turns about all the hot-bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty, sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirch’d worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?”

   “Once Francis lifts her hand. She pulls back, half-resisting, and for one moment it seems he intends to lay her little fingers upon his unspeakable codpiece.”

   “[David] Lynch’s film is actually much better than its terrible reputation, but Sting in a codpiece and a Toto soundtrack will never match the potential greatness of [Alejandro] Jodorowsky’s unmade epic.”

2. A conspicuous protection for the male genitals in a suit of plate armor.