fornication — English Dictionary

Noun

1. Sexual intercourse by people who are not married to each other, or which is considered illicit in another way.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   FRIAR BARNARDINE. Thou hast committed— BARABAS. Fornication: but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead.

   I am the sister of one Claudio, Condemned upon the act of fornication To lose his head, condemned by Angelo

   More examples (5)

   Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

   Draw not near unto fornication; for it is wickedness, and an evil way

   In one case, where a man was sued for committing fornication with his wife before marriage, it appeared, that seven years after her death he was cited to stand as a prisoner at their bar, though he had lived with her for nine years,[…]

   ... that he was a married man at the time is a necessary allegation, as the allegation that he was an unmarried man would have been necessary had he been charged with the crime of incest, by having committed fornication with his daughter.

   Thus, at Roxbury, 1678, Hanna Hopkins was censured in the church for fornication with her husband before marriage and for fleeing from justice into Rhode Island.

2. Sexual intercourse in general; sex.

   Usage

   • Colloquial
   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   For a moment he stared at the back of the Lascar, wondering if he were the youth that he had disturbed during fornication with his Engineer, then dismissed all thoughts of the previous night, he was getting old, and suspicious, what did it matter […]

Noun

1. voluntary sexual intercourse between persons not married to each other

   Broader terms

   extramarital sexfree love

2. extramarital sex that willfully and maliciously interferes with marriage relations

   Synonyms

   adulterycriminal conversation

   Broader terms

   extramarital sexfree love

   Examples

   adultery is often cited as grounds for divorce