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:
That meant LGBTQ+ and single people who historically had been shut out by definitions of infertility as a failure to conceive after six to 12 months of unprotected heterosexual intercourse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026
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
These two were having intercourse, in the old-fashioned sense of the word — the give-and-get idea swap described by the medieval Latin intercursus: “communication to and fro.”
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
No intercourse with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton’s absenting himself.
From "Emma" by Jane Austen
He threw out a reserve, encysted in which he grew to maturity unaffected by the intercourses that modify the maturity of others into the thing we call a man.
From Shelley; an essay by Francis Thompson
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
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
Milton was a stern man, and as he was so much devoted to study, he was perhaps too negligent in those endearments and tender intercourses of love which a wife has a right to expect.
From The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II by Theophilus Cibber
He declares, not only in his official communications here, but in his private intercourses with the members of the committee, that this clause is indispensably necessary to the security and negotiability of these demand notes.
From Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet An Autobiography. by John Sherman
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.
