Word.ws English Dictionary

beast with two backs

beast with two backs noun: two people united in sexual intercourse in the missionary position.

Noun

beast with two backs (plural beasts with two backs)

  1. (euphemistic, idiomatic) Two people united in sexual intercourse in the missionary position.
    • I am one ſir, that come to tell you, your daughter, and the Moore, are now making the Beaſt with two backs.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragœdy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. […] (First Quarto), London: […] N[icholas] O[kes] for Thomas Walkley, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act...
    • [H]e remained one of the few boys of his year with whom Adrian had never made the beast with two backs, or rather with whom he had never made the beast with one back and an interestingly shaped middle, […]1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 15
    Synonyms:
    double-backed beast, two-backed beast

Synonyms of beast with two backs

  • double-backed beast
  • two-backed beast

Forms of beast with two backs

pluralbeasts with two backs

Origin of beast with two backs

First attested in English by William Shakespeare, see quotations. Supposedly a calque of French la beste à deux doz (in modern French, la bête à deux dos) from Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1534, by François Rabelais.

Words formed from beast with two backs

  • make the beast with two backs

Questions about beast with two backs

What does beast with two backs mean?
Beast with two backs means two people united in sexual intercourse in the missionary position.
What part of speech is beast with two backs?
Beast with two backs is a noun.
What is the plural of beast with two backs?
The plural of beast with two backs is beasts with two backs.

Words near beast with two backs in the dictionary

  1. beast of draft
  2. beast of draught
  3. beast of prey
  4. beast of venery
  5. beast on
  6. beast with two backs
  7. beast-gate
  8. beast-gates
  9. beastdom
  10. beasted
  11. beasted on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beast with two backs (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-beast with two backs.ogg.

Cite this entry: “beast with two backs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beast_with_two_backs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.