carnal
US/ˈkɑɹnəl/
carnal adjective: relating to the physical and especially sexual appetites or activities.
Adjective
carnal (comparative more carnal, superlative most carnal)
- Relating to the physical and especially sexual appetites or activities.
- At the town of Mendes, in the principal temple, there was a living male goat, with which, if the statement of Herodotus is to be accepted, naked female worshippers actually had carnal intercourse.1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page 29
- Worldly or earthly; temporal.
- Of or relating to the body or flesh.
carnal meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
carnal in Urdu
- جنسی, نفسانی
carnal in Bengali
- carnal, fleshly
- মাংসিক maṅśik
carnal in Malayalam
- വിഷയാസക്തമായ, കാമവികാരപരമായ
carnal in Kannada
- ಲೈಂಗಿಕ, ಕಾಮುಕ, ಇಂದ್ರಿಯ ಸುಖದ, ವಿಷಯಲೋಲುಪತೆಯ
More languagesFewer languages
- carnal in Arabic
- جَسَدُيّ jasaduyy
- carnal in Persian
- تنانه tanâne
Examples of carnal in a sentence
- The coarsest sensualists are in thrall more to their brainish fantasies than to their carnal appetites.
- Therefore, what Proverbs is to Godlike wisdom, Ecclesiastes is to man's carnal tendencies and his self indulgences.
- Could the most exemplary character have triumphed over such unvegetarian, not to say carnal, lips?
Forms of carnal
| comparative | more carnal |
|---|---|
| superlative | most carnal |
Origin of carnal
From Middle English carnal, from Old French charnel, from Late Latin carnālis (“fleshy”), from oblique stem of Latin carō, carnis (“meat, flesh”) + -ālis (whence -al).
Words formed from carnal
Words that rhyme with carnal
Questions about carnal
- What does carnal mean?
- Carnal means relating to the physical and especially sexual appetites or activities.
- What is carnal in Urdu?
- Carnal in Urdu is جنسی, نفسانی. See Carnal meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is carnal?
- Carnal is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce carnal?
- Carnal is pronounced /ˈkɑɹnəl/ (US).
Words near carnal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: carnal (page history and authors); carnal (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); মাংসিক (Bengali) (page history and authors); carnal (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); carnal (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-carnal.wav.
Cite this entry: “carnal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carnal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.