seductive
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does seductive mean? Seductive is used to describe someone who makes you want to engage in sexual activity with them, especially in a subtle or manipulative way.Seductive is also commonly used in a more general way to describe someone or something that tempts or influences someone to do something, especially something bad or something they wouldn’t normally do. Though this meaning of the word does not involve sex, it’s still often associated with the sense of the word that does.Both senses of the word often imply a subtle manipulation in which one’s motives are hidden.Seductive is the adjective form of the verb seduce. The act of seducing is called seduction.Example: There’s nothing I find more seductive in a person than the confidence to be who they are.
Other Word Forms
- seductively adverb
- seductiveness noun
- unseductive adjective
- unseductively adverb
- unseductiveness noun
Etymology
Origin of seductive
First recorded in 1755–65; seduct(ion) + -ive
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.
This assumption is all the more seductive because it contains a grain of truth.
From Salon
If some of the more seductive colors of Sondheim’s score get lost in the acoustic shuffle, it may have more to do with the sound system than Darryl Archibald’s music direction.
From Los Angeles Times
It’s a seductive and deceptive dream that can cost you money, and once you’re hooked, the real-estate agent knows they have you in the palm of their hand.
From MarketWatch
They can be scathingly ironic, alert to every hypocrisy that corroborates their cynical worldview, and even seductive in a perverse, power-mad way.
From Los Angeles Times
Well, people return to the racetrack, too: Memories of past wins are seductive.
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.
