celibacy
noun
Simple meaning
Abstaining from sexual relations.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehluhbuhseeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛləbəsi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Abstaining from sexual relations (as because of religious vows)
Abstaining from marriage; the state of being unmarried.
by extension
Abstinence from sexual relations.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Abstaining from sexual relations (as because of religious vows)
Used this way, celibacy is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- chastitynoun
- priesthoodnoun
- dogmanoun
- ordinationnoun
- abstinencenoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: abstaining from sexual relations (as because of religious vows)
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.