Etymology From Latin Paphius [from Ancient Greek Πάφιος (Páphios), from Πάφος (Páphos, “Paphos”) + -ιος (-ios)] + English -an.
1
Of, from or relating to Paphos, the mythical birthplace of the goddess of love on the island of Cyprus.
[…] the Paphian deitie,1611, Homer, translated by George Chapman, Iliads, page 281:
Then thus incensed, the Paphian queen replies: / "Obey the power from whom thy glories rise: / Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly, / Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye. / Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more / The world’s aversion, than their love before; / Now the bright prize for which mankind engage, / Than, the sad victim, of the public rage."1715–1720, Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, “Book III”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC:
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So ſaying, the might of Vulcan loos’d the ſnare, / And they, detain’d by thoſe coercive bands / No longer, from the couch upſtarting, flew, / Mars into Thrace, and to her Paphian home / The Queen of ſmiles, where deep in myrtle groves / Her incenſe-breathing altar ſtands embow’r’d.1791, Homer, “[The Odyssey.] Book VIII.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume II, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 181, lines 441–446:
2
Literary Pertaining to love or sexual desire, especially when illicit.
Cease admiration, sit to Cupid's feast, / The preparation to Paphian dalliance.1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, act III scene 4:
I lay, as it were, in the Paphian bower of bliss, in a state of exquisite sensations quite impossible to describe.1873, Anonymous (William Potter), The Romance of Lust; or, Early Experiences, volume I, William Lazenby:
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People passed, but they held me not. Paphian eyes rayed upon me, and left me unscathed.1906, O. Henry, Man About Town:
Paphian
noun
Etymology From Latin Paphius [from Ancient Greek Πάφιος (Páphios), from Πάφος (Páphos, “Paphos”) + -ιος (-ios)] + English -an.
1
A native or inhabitant of Paphos.
Then there is the mastus. Apollodorus the Cyrenæan, as Pamphilus says, states that this is a name given to drinking-cups by the Paphians.1854, Athenaeus of Naucratis, translated by Charles Duke Yonge, The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned, volume II, page 777:
They reach'd the hotel: forth stream'd from the front door / A tide of well-clad waiters, and around / The mob stood, and as usual several score / Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound / In decent London when the daylight's o'er; / Commodious but immoral, they are found / Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage.1824, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto the Eleventh, XXX:
A smile I had learned to know elsewhere lurked at one corner of my paphian's mouth.1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter 9, in The Shadow of the Torturer: