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
These two were having intercourse, in the old-fashioned sense of the word.
From Salon ● Feb. 9, 2025
Procedures that appear scary and unnatural to many can feel novel and exciting to science-obsessed computer nerds: IVF can seem “safer” than conceiving via intercourse because it’s monitored by scientists.
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
“Should our whole intercourse consist of an exchange of compliments? Ma foi!”
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
Our class distinctions, our artificial intercourses, our hypocritical professions, our deference for externals,—are they not the flimsiest pretences that ever were fashioned?
From A Day's Ride A Life's Romance by Charles James Lever
There is a maxim extremely in vogue in the ordinary intercourses of society, which deserves to be noticed here, for the purpose of exposing it to merited condemnation.
From Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author by William Godwin
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
In all the intercourses of her family, since the first rough usage which she remembered, there had never been anything sweet or gracious.
From The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
But it was in the intercourses of social life that the superiority of Opposition was most incontestable.
From The American Quarterly Review No. XVIII, June 1831 (Vol 9) by Various
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.
