incest

From Latin incestus. Displaced native Old English mǣġhǣmed (literally “relative-sex”). Doublet of inchaste.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnsɛst/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnsɛst

incest (usually uncountable, plural incests)

1. Sexual relations between close relatives, especially immediate family members and sometimes first cousins, usually considered taboo; in many jurisdictions, close relatives are not allowed to marry, and incest is a crime.

   Genetic problems caused by incest are thought to have plagued many royal families in the Middle Ages.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 12:

     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.

   • 2005, George R. R. Martin, A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire, page 225:

     He was only Craster's whelp, an abomination born of incest, not the son of the King-beyond-the-Wall.

• inbreeding

• outbreeding

incest (third-person singular simple present incests, present participle incesting, simple past and past participle incested)

1. (ambitransitive) To engage in incestuous sexual intercourse.
   • 1994, Kathryn Carter, Interpretive Approaches to Interpersonal Communication:

     I do not want anyone to feel that my lesbianism is a result of being incested.

   • 2009, Antonino Ferro, The Analytic Field: A Clinical Concept, page 206:

     Her erotic transference ultimately devolved into a revelation that she had been consistently incested by her brother

   • 2011, Marvin Mengeling, Crows, Pete Rose, UFOs: And Other Pretty Pieces, page 2:

     […] the most powerful of that bunch of immortal giants called Titans was Cronus, who “incested” with sister Rhea, who then birthed the Olympians (Zeus and his bunch) […]

• sexual intercourse
• inbreeder
• inbred
• sisterfucker
• motherfucker
• brotherfucker

• incest on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “incest”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “incest, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “incest”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “incest”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “incest” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2025.

• ceints, insect, nicest, scient

Ultimately from Latin incestus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪn.sɛst/, (dated) /ɪnˈsɛst/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: in‧cest

incest m (uncountable)

1. incest

   Synonyms: bloedschande, bloedschending, bloedschennis

• incestdrama
• incesttheorie
• incestueus

Borrowed from French inceste, from Latin incestus.

incest n (plural incesturi)

1. incest

Borrowed from Latin incestus.

• IPA^(key): /ǐnt͡sest/
• Hyphenation: in‧cest

ìncest m inan (Cyrillic spelling ѝнцест)

1. incest

incest c

1. incest

   Synonym: (dated) blodskam

• incestuös (“incestuous”)

• incest in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• incest in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• incest in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)