intercourse
Americannoun
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intercourses
plural
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sexual intercourse, especially coitus.
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dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.
- Synonyms:
- traffic, trade, commerce, sexual relations, sex act, sex, relations, copulation
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interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc.
noun
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communication or exchange between individuals; mutual dealings
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of intercourse
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English intercurse, from Medieval Latin intercursus “communication, trading,” Latin “a running between, interposition”; see inter-, course
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
This was the year Japan passed landmark laws to redefine rape from "forcible sexual intercourse" to "non-consensual sexual intercourse" and raised the age of consent from 13 to 16.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2025
She followed all the old wives’ tales—including “drugging” her husband with supplements, timing intercourse, and eating acidic foods—in an attempt to maximize the odds that her third child would be a daughter.
From Slate ● May 7, 2024
The WHO defines infertility as a disease of the male or female reproductive system that is defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.
From Reuters ● Apr. 4, 2023
Defined as the inability of an individual to conceive within 12 months of engaging in regular unprotected intercourse, infertility impacts at least 186 million people in the world today.
From Salon ● Mar. 23, 2023
Arthur said: "After all, Galahad is only a child! He has growing pains, perhaps. I don’t think we ought to judge him unkindly for little faults of social intercourse."
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Yet to me it seemed that the lads actually sought to avoid these casual intercourses.
From Fibble, D.D. by Tony Sarg
What will be the spontaneous impression produced by looking back on bygone intercourses in life?
From Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Edward Bannerman Ramsay
As she frankly admitted, she had rather fallen back on Edith, finding her, after many experiments, the most agreeable of friends, chiefly because in their intercourses everything was always taken for granted.
From Love's Shadow by Ada Leverson
Moreover, "it is lawful upon a just cause of great charity or necessity to use, in our answers and intercourses, words of divers signification, though it does deceive him that asks."
From A Lie Never Justifiable by H. Clay (Henry Clay) Trumbull
There is in mankind a universal contract implied in all their intercourses....
From Apologia pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
