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fornication

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Fornication is defined as sexual intercourse between unmarried partners.

(noun)

An example of fornication is sexual intercourse between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman.

See fornication in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

1. voluntary sexual intercourse engaged in by a man, esp. an unmarried man, with an unmarried woman
2. voluntary sexual intercourse engaged in by an unmarried person: if the other person is married, the act of the unmarried person is sometimes considered adultery
Bible
1. any unlawful sexual intercourse, including adultery
2. worship of idols

Origin: ME fornicacioun < OFr fornication < LL(Ec) fornicatio < fornicatus: see fornicate

See fornication in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun

Sexual intercourse between partners who are not married to each other.

Word History: The word fornication had a lowly beginning suitable to what has long been the low moral status of the act to which it refers. The Latin word fornix, from which fornicātiō, the ancestor of fornication, is derived, meant “a vault, an arch.” The term also referred to a vaulted cellar or similar place where prostitutes plied their trade. This sense of fornix in Late Latin yielded the verb fornicārī, “to commit fornication,” from which is derived fornicātiō, “whoredom, fornication.” Our word is first recorded in Middle English about 1303.

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