sex

Pronunciation

• IPA: /seks/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sex, borrowed from Latin sexus (“a sex, the state of being male or female”),^[2][3][4] perhaps through Old French sexe.^[5][6][7] The Latin word is of uncertain origin.^[3] It is commonly connected with secāre (“to cut, divide”), as if it meant a “division” of the race,^[3][2][8][9] but de Vaan, quoted by Etymonline, finds the formation unclear beside the parallel Latin secus.^[3] It is related to section and sect.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Either of the two divisions of living beings, male and female, or the members of one collectively: 1382,^[10] or about 1380 in Chaucer's Boethius.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Hoad notes that the word was rare before the 16th century.^[7] The quality of being male or female, with reference to animals, is recorded by the 1520s,^[3] and the word was extended to plants by the 1560s.^[3] Women have been the fair sex or the weaker sex since the mid-16th century,^[11][10] and the sex alone meant womankind from the 1580s.^[3][10] Etymonline quotes Thomas Wright's remark that Old English seems to have had no abstract word for sex.^[3] The meaning “sexual intercourse”, as in have sex, dates only from the start of the 20th century, D. H. Lawrence being among the first to use it.^[11][3] The verb “to determine the sex of” is from 1884,^[10][3] sex up, “to make sexier”, from 1942,^[10][3] and the slang verb “to have sex” from 1966.^[10][12] The genitals have been called one's sex since 1938.^[12]

Timeline

• 1382 – one of the two sexes.^[10]
• 1520s – the quality of being male or female.^[3]
• mid-16th century – the fair sex, the weaker sex.^[11]
• 1560s – of plants.^[3]
• 1580s – the sex, womankind.^[3]
• 1884 – verb, to determine the sex of.^[10]
• early 20th century – sexual intercourse.^[11]
• 1942 – sex up.^[10]
• 1966 – verb, to have sex (slang).^[10][12]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Either of the two divisions, female and male, into which many organisms are classified by their reproductive functions.
2. Females or males considered as a group.
3. The condition of being female or male.
4. Sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.
5. (literary) The genitals.

Verb

1. To determine the sex of, as of chicks.
2. (sex up) To arouse sexually, or to make more appealing.

Related words

• sexual
• sexuality
• sexualize
• sexy
• sexism
• section
• sect
• bisexual
• unisex

Usage notes

Word Origins notes that sexy, in the literal sense, is from the 1890s, and in the sense “exciting, appealing” from the 1950s.^[11]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge