incest
noun
- sexual activity between family members or close relatives
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈɪn.sɛst/
noun
Etymology: Learned borrowing from Latin incestus. Displaced Old English mǣġhǣmed (literally “relative-sex”). Doublet of inchaste.
- Sexual relations between close relatives, especially immediate family members and sometimes first cousins, usually considered taboo.
“Genetic problems caused by incest are thought to have plagued many royal families in the Middle Ages.”
“For a structuralist like Edmund Leach, the structure is the meaning. Genesis, for example, is about incest taboos; all the rest is noise and mystification.”
- Romantic relationships between close relatives, also widely taboo.
verb
Etymology: Learned borrowing from Latin incestus. Displaced Old English mǣġhǣmed (literally “relative-sex”). Doublet of inchaste.
- To engage in incestuous sexual activities.
“I do not want anyone to feel that my lesbianism is a result of being incested.”
“Her erotic transference ultimately devolved into a revelation that she had been consistently incested by her brother”