adultery
noun
Did you know?
What’s the difference between adultery and fornication?
In case you were wondering, the words adultery and adult are not etymologically related (in other words, adultery didn’t grow out of adult in the way that punditry grew out of pundit). Although both words come from Latin and share the same first five letters, adultery is from adulterāre (“to pollute, defile, commit adultery”), a word formed ultimately from the Latin elements ad- “to, near” and alter “other.” English adult comes from adultus, which is the past participle of the Latin word adolescere (“to grow up”).
In legal use there is a difference between adultery and fornication. Adultery is only used when at least one of the parties involved (either male or female) is married, whereas fornication may be used to describe two people who are unmarried (to each other or anyone else) engaging in consensual sexual intercourse.
Synonyms
Examples of adultery in a Sentence
Victoria Edel, People.com, 4 Nov. 2024
She’s getting beheaded for committing adultery with a distant cousin.
—Elle Carroll, Vulture, 18 June 2024
There’s adultery and cuckoldry and suspicions of adultery and cuckoldry and doubles and all the other good Cronenbergian ideas.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 20 May 2024
Seems dad’s latest Big Book is, in fact, completely plagiarized from a manuscript, long thought destroyed, written by McNeal’s wife, Harlan’s mother, who committed suicide after discovering her husband’s adultery.
—Greg Evans, Deadline, 30 Sep. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Adultery.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adultery. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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adultery
noun
Legal Definition
adultery
noun
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