intercourse
Americannoun
-
intercourses
plural
-
sexual intercourse, especially coitus.
-
dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.
- Synonyms:
- traffic, trade, commerce, sexual relations, sex act, sex, relations, copulation
-
interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc.
noun
-
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
As he warned, the “logical consequences of … a decision which elevates commercial intercourse … to the same plane as has been previously reserved for the free marketplace of ideas, are far reaching indeed.”
From Slate ● Nov. 2, 2023
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
She still rang the house telephone to the morning-room every day and submitted the menu to me as a matter of form, but that was the limit of our intercourse.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
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
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
Here he spent the rest of days in devotional exercises in friendly intercourses with other Sufis and in religious instruction of the young.
From Mystics and Saints of Islam by Claud Field
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
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
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.
