adultery
Americannoun
noun
Usage
What does adultery mean? Adultery is a consensual sexual relationship or encounter between someone who’s married and a person they’re not married to (who may or may not be married to someone else). In other words, it can be between two people who are both married to other people, or between a married person and a nonmarried person. Typically, for something to be considered adultery, at least one of the partners must be married. On the other hand, similar words like cheating, infidelity, and unfaithfulness can be used regardless of whether either person is married—they simply refer to a (usually sexual) relationship or encounter between people when one or both of them is in a committed relationship with someone else. When it happens with someone other than one’s spouse, a long-term relationship (often called an affair), a single sexual encounter, or anything in between can be considered to constitute adultery. In some cases, a relationship may even be considered adultery when it’s nonsexual but intimate (this is sometimes called an emotional affair). The word adultery is especially used in a religious context, in which it’s often considered a sin. For that reason, it’s often used with the verb commit. It’s also sometimes used in a legal context, such as during divorce proceedings. Adultery is a crime in some places (including in some U. S. states, though people aren’t often charged for it). Adultery is associated with a considerable amount of stigma. The word adultery and its related terms are always used negatively and imply a critical judgment of such actions. Someone who participates in adultery can be called an adulterer. Such people or relationships can be described as adulterous. The word adulteress specifically refers to a woman who has engaged in adultery. (It has been more common throughout history for women to be blamed—and punished—for adulterous relationships than men.)Example: Adultery is a profound breach of trust in a marriage.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of adultery
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English adulterie, from Latin adulterium, equivalent to adulter ( see adulterer) + -ium -ium; replacing Middle English a(d)voutri(e), from Old French avout(e)rie
Compare meaning
How does adultery compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Adultery is a word for cheating — cheating on your spouse with another person. Adultery isn’t a crime, but some people consider it a sin. If two people are dating, and one fools around with someone else, it's not adultery. Only married people can commit adultery. If you commit adultery — and your spouse finds out — then you’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Although it's still highly frowned upon, cultural attitudes toward adultery have changed a lot: the classic book The Scarlet Letter shows how harshly women were once treated for committing adultery.
Vocabulary lists containing adultery
Novel Study: The Crucible, Act 2
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The Woman Warrior
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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:
We are a long way from those midcentury stories, like “Citizen Kane,” whose decisive moments hinged on adultery.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
She later accused him of adultery again leading to Kimberley trying to barricade herself in a room.
From BBC ● Mar. 2, 2026
The mystery that Cave carves out of Fred’s apparent adultery is so thin that it’s transparent.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2025
Fault-based divorce, on the other hand, requires the partner seeking the divorce to provide evidence of their spouse's wrongdoing on specific grounds that also vary state-to-state, including cruelty, adultery, intemperance and abandonment.
From Salon ● Nov. 4, 2024
Had Margaery Tyrell somehow wriggled free of the accusations of fornication, adultery, and high treason?
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Marry Me: 'It crossed my mind to keep running totals of the divorces, separations, adulteries, sexual humiliations, maimings, deaths and thwarted hopes that these tiny stories compass.'
From The Guardian ● Feb. 8, 2013
Dissidents charged that Garner Ted had not properly repented his adulteries, adding that other church sinners had not been treated so forgivingly.
From Time Magazine Archive
Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art.
From Time Magazine Archive
Between fashionable adulteries unrolls the story of Johnnie's employer, Chance Winter, an Englishman with world-wide armament connections which he uses to promote the subversive ends of an international secret organization.
From Time Magazine Archive
The meanness with which he obliged his wretched victim to supply him with money would have been disgraceful to the basest adulteries of the cellar or garret.
From The Life of Lord Byron by Galt, John
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.
