homophile
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Of or about the "homophile movement", a gay activist movement emphasizing love over sex.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hohmuhfylIPA pronunciation (US)
hoʊməfaɪl
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.
adjective
chiefly historical
Of or pertaining to the "homophile movement", a gay activist movement emphasizing love over sex.
dated
Homosexual, gay or lesbian, having a sexual or romantic preference for persons of one's own gender; used to emphasize love over sex.
biologymedicineof an antibody
Reacting only with homologous antigens.
noun
biologymedicine
An antibody that reacts only with homologous antigens.
dated
Someone who is sexually attracted to persons of the same sex
dated
A homosexual, a gay man or lesbian, one who has a sexual or romantic preference for persons of the same gender; used to emphasize love over sex.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An antibody that reacts only with homologous antigens.
Used this way, homophile is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
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.
- homosexualnoun
- gaynoun
- homosexualitynoun
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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.