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:
It can cause extreme pain during periods, sexual intercourse and bowel movements, as well as pelvic pain, abdominal bloating, nausea and fatigue.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 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
From dawn to dusk, observant Muslims the world over will refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual intercourse.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 10, 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 foil”.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
When I am silent upon a matter occurring in the usual intercourses of life where I might speak, nay, where we will suppose I ought to speak, I am at least guilty of dissimulation only.
From Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author by William Godwin
It is asserted, that they understand each other in their commercial intercourses.
From An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1 by Alexander Hewatt
The imagination, however, of the reader pictures to itself a man who could hardly have been a Consul at any time—one silent, lonely, uncouth, and altogether separate from the pleasant intercourses of life.
From The Life of Cicero Volume One by Anthony Trollope
An observer who can also speculate,—one who looks before and after,—will conclude that, amidst some evil, the change is advantageous; and that good must, on the whole, arise from enlarged intercourses between men and societies.
From How to Observe Morals and Manners by Harriet Martineau
In his intercourses with the queen of Scots as ambassador from Elizabeth, he had already shown himself her zealous partisan.
From Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth by Lucy Aikin
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.
