lechery
Americannoun
-
lecheries
plural
-
unrestrained or excessive indulgence of sexual desire.
- Synonyms:
- promiscuity, lust, carnality
-
a lecherous act.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of lechery
1200–50; Middle English lecherie < Old French. See lecher, -y 3
Explanation
Lechery is a noun applied to a person's feelings that are lustful or sexual in an extreme or unnatural way. A person's lechery may lead to wrong and unlawful physical acts or attacks on others, or to the making and viewing of inappropriate pictures and movies. Someone described as a "pervert" might also be called a lecher, whose offensive behavior and actions are lechery. Attraction between a husband and wife would not be lechery, because it's between two people who have a desire together. Lechery is a one-sided lust that crosses the line to being inappropriate and making others feel very uncomfortable or even afraid. Bad guys or "Casanovas" in literature demonstrate lechery when they try to win over innocent young women with lies.
Vocabulary lists containing lechery
The Crucible
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Catherine, Called Birdy
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Cat's Cradle
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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.
The solution was Verdon herself: She transforms an out-of-step ode to lechery into a revisionist two-hander about the sexism of memory, history, and show business.
From Slate ● Apr. 8, 2019
Hadleigh Adams emphasized wistful wisdom, not lechery, as Nicomedes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2017
He looks upon the Trojan War, and all the warriors who risk their lives in it, with a vision that strips all noble motives away and sees only lechery, roguery, and knavery.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 9, 2016
She has dressed up as the Countess, and what Figaro overhears nearby as Susanna's acquiescence to the Count's lechery is in reality a song for him, a hymn to love's simple joys.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 14, 2013
Fyrste when it is set before, and is called preiunctio, as: There dyd ouercome in hym, lechery, his chastitie, saucines his feare, madnesse hys reason.
From A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes by Herbert William Hildebrandt
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.
