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.
"The idea that the region responsible for the problem could now become part of the solution is a very seductive narrative," said the head of this environmental NGO, Truls Gulowsen.
From Barron's
Even in these cases, a particular moral clarity persists: War may be terrible, egos corrupt and violence seductive, but there’s always at least one character whose vision remains unsullied.
“Retribution is seductive like that, promising a clean line between good and evil. But it’s an illusion,” she eventually concludes in her book.
From Salon
Life would become just a perpetual cruise to fill our time with endless seductive distractions.
Heusinger’s James has a seductive earnestness that conceals some shocking character developments.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
