promiscuous

adjective

pro·mis·cu·ous | \ prə-ˈmi-skyə-wəs

Definition of promiscuous

1 : having or involving many sexual partners : not restricted to one sexual partner or few sexual partners

2 : not restricted to one class, sort, or person : indiscriminate education … cheapened through the promiscuous distribution of diplomas— Norman Cousins

3 : casual, irregular promiscuous eating habits

4 : composed of all sorts of persons or things

Other Words from promiscuous Synonyms & Antonyms The Multiple Meanings of Promiscuous More Example Sentences Learn More about promiscuous

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The Multiple Meanings of Promiscuous

Promiscuous (from Latin promiscuus “without distinction, taken from every different type”) has a range of meanings in English. The oldest of these is “composed of all sorts of persons and things” (as in “a promiscuous array of books” or “the promiscuous company at the tavern”). This meaning suggests a random assortment, not necessarily with negative implications.

Within the last few hundred years, promiscuous has added the usually negatively-tinged meanings “indiscriminate” (“promiscuous destruction by bombing”), “casual or careless” (“the president’s promiscuous dishonesty”), and of course, “not restricted to one sexual partner.”

Does this mean that the word itself is promiscuous? Not at all. It is not uncommon for English words to display this polysemous (“having multiple meanings”) character, and promiscuous is actually on the tidy end of the spectrum, as far as these things go. Some English words have dozens of meanings.

Examples of promiscuous in a Sentence

a promiscuous selection of poems since I just collect stamps that I happen to like, my collection is pretty promiscuous

Recent Examples on the Web Among them was Humpty Hump, the promiscuous goofball from D.U. — Sheldon Pearce, The New Yorker, "DMX, Shock G, and the Plight of the Middle-Aged Rapper," 27 Apr. 2021 The shots are now recommended for children of all genders, but misperceptions of the early rollout stigmatized the mostly female preteens who signed up for the shots as promiscuous, and the sole bearers of disease. — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, "The J&J Vaccine Blood Clots Might Not Be a ‘Women’s Problem’," 16 Apr. 2021 The slasher subgenre has conservative moralistic underpinnings — its medium is violent punishment after all, and many of its victims have been promiscuous women. — Los Angeles Times, "Novelist Stephen Graham Jones would never let a dead elk or a horror trope go to waste," 8 Apr. 2021 The disease’s capriciousness ends up doling out tangy, ironic reversals, such as when a mostly chaste character meets his demise before the promiscuous ones do. — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, "It’s a Sin and the Ritual of AIDS Fiction," 11 Mar. 2021 This promiscuous nature means that fungi grow rooms must be kept sterile to avoid cultivating unwanted crops, a condition that lends itself well to a pandemic. — New York Times, "The Mushrooms Will Survive Us," 7 Feb. 2021 To some ears, Doblin’s rhetoric about ending genocide and enlightening humanity through widespread use harkens back to Leary, the Harvard professor whose promiscuous dispensation of LSD led to his firing in 1963. — Ben Harris, sun-sentinel.com, "Jewish psychedelics advocate working to turn club drug into legal medicine," 19 Nov. 2020 Carrie Buck, Virginia resident, had been deemed promiscuous after she was raped by a nephew of her foster family. — Kate Baggaley, Popular Science, "America has a long history of forced sterilization," 18 Sep. 2020 Many are promiscuous, meaning that males and females mate with multiple partners. — National Geographic, "Flying squirrels," 21 Aug. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'promiscuous.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.