SEXUAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Sexual

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/sˈɛkʃuəl/ Listen

adjective

Sexual adj. Of or pertaining to sex, or the sexes; distinguishing sex; peculiar to the distinction and office of male or female; relating to the distinctive genital organs of the sexes; proceeding from, or based upon, sex; as, sexual characteristics; sexual intercourse, connection, or commerce; sexual desire; sexual diseases; sexual generation.

Sexual dimorphism (Biol.), the condition of having one of the sexes existing in two forms, or varieties, differing in color, size, etc., as in many species of butterflies which have two kinds of females.

Sexual method (Bot.), a method of classification proposed by Linnaeus, founded mainly on difference in number and position of the stamens and pistils of plants.

Sexual selection (Biol.), the selective preference of one sex for certain characteristics in the other, such as bright colors, musical notes, etc.; also, the selection which results from certain individuals of one sex having more opportunities of pairing with the other sex, on account of greater activity, strength, courage, etc.; applied likewise to that kind of evolution which results from such sexual preferences. "In these cases, therefore, natural selection seems to have acted independently of sexual selection."

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Etymology of 'Sexual'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sexual" Quotes from Famous Books

... sensual? The whole human race is far too sensual in my opinion. They think a great deal too much about their sexual appetites;—only they don't think about them in those terms unfortunately; they think about them veiled and wreathed; that's why we are sunk in such a ...

— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... beings, men and women, depends largely on their rational solution of the sexual problem. Sex and the part it plays in human life cannot be ignored. In the case of animals sex plays a simpler and less complex role. It is a purely natural and instinctive function whose underlying purpose is the perpetuation of ...

— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton

... the other hand I believe in statistics; and those on divorces appear to me to be most conclusive." And he sets himself the task of explaining—in a couple of columns—the process by which Easy-Divorce conceived, invented, originated, developed, and perfected an empire-embracing condition of sexual purity in the States. IN 40 YEARS. No, he doesn't state the interval. With all his passion for statistics he forgot to ask how long it took to produce this ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... concentration of all volition." And in another passage: "The affirmation of the will to live concentrates itself in the act of procreation, which is its most positive expression." Mainlaender gives utterance to the opinion when he says: "The sexual impulse is the centre of gravity for human existence. It alone secures to the individual the life which he above all desires ... man devotes himself more seriously to the business of procreation than to any other; in the achievement of nothing else does he condense and ...

— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... that the too extended suppression of a desire gives rise to pathological disturbances and in time cripples the function. Especially in the case of women may the damage entailed by too long continued sexual abstinence bring ...

— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

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