sexual
adjective
Simple meaning
That comes from being male or female.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehkshoouhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛkʃuəl
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
Arising from the fact of being male or female; pertaining to sex or gender, or to the social relations between the sexes.
Characterised by sexual feelings or behaviour; possessing sexuality.
Pertaining to sexuality as a cultural phenomenon; relating to sexual behaviour or conduct.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Having a sex; being male or female.
Unisex; suitable for any sex or gender.
Between the sexes.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Activities associated with sexual intercourse.
The arousal of sexual desires in preparation for sexual behavior.
A statutory offense that provides that it is a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat.
Attractiveness on the basis of sexual desire.
Those characteristics (both anatomical and psychological) that are strongly associated with one sex relative to the other.
The moment of most intense pleasure in sexual intercourse.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The process during which personality and sexual behavior mature through a series of stages: first oral stage and then anal stage and then phallic stage and then latency stage and finally…
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- homosexualitynoun
- homosexualnoun
- bisexualnoun
- rapeverb
- heterosexualnoun
- dysfunctionnoun
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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.