Cadenus

Literary invention, Latin

"dean, head of a cathedral or college church"

Cadenus Origin and Meaning

The name Cadenus is a boy's name meaning "dean, head of a cathedral or college church".

Jonathon Swift is better known as the inventor of the popular Vanessa, however, he also invented Cadenus for the same poem, simply titled Cadenus and Vanessa. Cadenus is an anagram of the Latin decanus meaning "dean", as in, the dean of a cathedral. At the time of writing, Swift was the dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, known in his community as Dean Swift. Vanessa meanwhile is a play on his lover's name, Esther Vanhomrigh, so both Cadenus and Vanessa are pseudonyms that Swift used in order to write a secret love poem.