SODOMY

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sodomy mean? 

• SODOMY (noun)
  The noun SODOMY has 2 senses:

1. sexual activity between a person and an animal

2. intercourse via the anus, committed by a man with a man or woman

  Familiarity information: SODOMY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SODOMY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sexual activity between a person and an animal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

bestiality; sodomy; zooerastia; zooerasty

Hypernyms ("sodomy" is a kind of...):

sex; sex activity; sexual activity; sexual practice (activities associated with sexual intercourse)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Intercourse via the anus, committed by a man with a man or woman

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

anal intercourse; anal sex; buggery; sodomy

Hypernyms ("sodomy" is a kind of...):

perversion; sexual perversion (an aberrant sexual practice)

Derivation:

sodomise (practice anal sex upon)

sodomist (someone who engages in anal copulation (especially a male who engages in anal copulation with another male))

sodomize (practice anal sex upon)

 Context examples 

But when some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others, to the betraying of their country or their prince; some, to poisoning; more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent, I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration, which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity, by us their inferiors.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Some were undone by lawsuits; others spent all they had in drinking, whoring, and gaming; others fled for treason; many for murder, theft, poisoning, robbery, perjury, forgery, coining false money, for committing rapes, or sodomy; for flying from their colours, or deserting to the enemy; and most of them had broken prison; none of these durst return to their native countries, for fear of being hanged, or of starving in a jail; and therefore they were under the necessity of seeking a livelihood in other places.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)