Thesaurus results for COPULATING

copulating 1 of 2

noun

as in sex

sexual union involving penetration of the vagina by the penis our Puritan forebears imposed severe penalties for copulating outside of marriage

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copulating

2 of 2

verb

present participle of copulate

as in sleeping

to engage in sexual intercourse the time of year when deer in the wild are likely to copulate

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of copulating

Verb

While copulating, female praying mantises often kill their mates and eat them. — Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, 22 June 2026 And finally, wouldn’t being near-perfectly still for an hour make a pair of copulating octopuses ridiculously exposed to predators? — Jacek Krywko, ArsTechnica, 2 Apr. 2026 After copulating, the two males lay immobile on the seafloor as the female swam away. — Jack Guy, CNN Money, 24 Sep. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for copulating

Noun

First, there was Green Porno, her series of shorts that launched in 2008 on the Sundance Channel and explored some of the more bizarre mating behaviors in nature.

— Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 6 Aug. 2026
The team recently investigated the mating habits of another species, Leiobunum limbatum, which showed quite a different routine.

— Christa Lesté-Lasserre, Scientific American, 3 Aug. 2026

Definition of mating

Verb

Some travel essentials are simply non-negotiable, from a blackout eye mask for sleeping on the plane to a personal safety alarm for peace of mind.

— Hayley Domin, Travel + Leisure, 8 Aug. 2026
At the Whitney Biennial, Carmen de Monteflores’s long-unseen shaped canvases of colorful overlapping figures hung alongside her daughter Andrea Fraser’s wax sculptures of sleeping toddlers.

— Carmen Rosenberg-Miller, Artforum, 6 Aug. 2026

Definition of sleeping

Noun

Postwar intellectuals used psychoanalytic ideas in a variety of ways, including to discuss race relations and homosexuality.

— Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 4 Aug. 2026
Rather, the pivotal transactions, graphed like the peaks and valleys of a volatile stock index, are the relations between men and women.

— Cynthia Zarin, Harpers Magazine, 4 Aug. 2026

Definition of relations

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“Copulating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/copulating. Accessed 10 Aug. 2026.

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Synonyms of copulating

noun

verb

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