lasciviousness

American  

[luh-siv-ee-uhs-nis] / ləˈsɪv i əs nɪs /

noun

1. unrestrained sexual behavior, or a habitual inclination to such behavior; lustfulness.

   They celebrated their victory with an orgy of drunken lasciviousness.

2. a lustful or lewd quality; the quality of arousing sexual desire.

   She smiled with a hint of lasciviousness in her eyes.

---

Other Word Forms

• overlasciviousness noun

Etymology

Origin of lasciviousness

lascivious ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )

Example Sentences

One of the handful of nonnegotiable church reforms demanded by early Lutherans was marriage for clergy as a means of ending hypocrisy and lasciviousness on the part of priests.

From Time Magazine Archive

James laughed when comedian Dave Chappelle mocked him as a high priest of lost talent and lasciviousness; he thought Chappelle should play him in the movie of his life.

From Time Magazine Archive

His spirit, wayward, melancholy, and splendid, belonged to the Renaissance�the English Renaissance, in which the conflicting currents of ambition, learning, religion, and lasciviousness were so subtly intervolved.

From Time Magazine Archive

I detected no hint of lasciviousness in Bill’s voice or manner, certainly no element of pimping; no, he was simply trying to protect me.

From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin

Go through Paul's long and dismal catalogue of "the works of the flesh": "Fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like."

From The Teaching of Jesus by Jackson, George