heterosexual
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or exhibiting heterosexuality, sexual desire or behavior directed toward people of the other binary gender.
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Biology. of or relating to different sexes.
heterosexual fraternal twins.
noun
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heterosexuals
plural
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of heterosexual
Explanation
A heterosexual person is attracted to people of the opposite sex. Boys who like girls and women who like men are heterosexual. Being heterosexual has long been considered "normal" in our society. When you think of a married couple or parents, it's usually been a man and woman — in other words, a heterosexual couple. However, being heterosexual is only one sexual orientation. Other people are gay, or homosexual. Our culture is slowly starting to accept that heterosexuality isn't the only acceptable sexual orientation. Another word for heterosexual is straight.
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:
As recently as 2021, sociologist Ellen Lamont reviewed more than 100 studies on heterosexual dating and found traditional dating scripts still remained, with men still expected to make the first move.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
Must we really dwell, ladies, on the downsides of heterosexual dating, marriage, childbearing, and domestic labor as though they are issues of life and death?
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
In part, this archetype, as Fiedler dubs it, reflects our literature’s recurrent failure to deal honestly with adult heterosexual love and its attendant responsibilities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
“Incels” is a term that generally refers to extremely online heterosexual men whose “involuntary celibacy” has shaped their attitudes toward women and other worldviews.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2026
And anyway, terms like homosexual or heterosexual made no sense if you didn’t identify as one gender or another.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
And it’s not only heterosexuals among the estimated 44 million refugees around the world.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2025
"I'm a married gay man and we adopted our son so we didn't have the normal route that most heterosexuals couples will have had into parenting," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2024
In 2021, Australian biologist Brendan Zietsch and colleagues presented evidence that heterosexuals carrying same-sex-associated alleles have more sexual partners than those not carrying the variants.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 3, 2024
While 69% of heterosexuals described their physical health as “good” or “excellent,” only half of their non-straight peers said the same.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 29, 2023
“Every night he introduced me with shining words to these walls of heterosexuals all over the world,” Anohni intoned, as a drummer in the park bashed away in the distance.
From New York Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
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.
