Word.ws English Dictionary

heavy petting

heavy petting noun: sexual groping; erotic horseplay; foreplay.

Noun

heavy petting (uncountable)

  1. (dated outside furry fandom) Sexual groping; erotic horseplay; foreplay.
    • Of Ms. Wolf, Ms. Henneberger wrote, “Her last book, ‘Promiscuities,’ is about girls sexually coming of age and prescribes heavy petting as an alternative to early intercourse.” What a pleasure it was to see heavy petting back in use.1999 November 21, William Safire, quoting Melinda Henneberger, “On Language; Trope-a-dope”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Questions about heavy petting

What does heavy petting mean?
Heavy petting means sexual groping; erotic horseplay; foreplay.
What part of speech is heavy petting?
Heavy petting is a noun.

Words near heavy petting in the dictionary

  1. heavy metal umlauts
  2. heavy metally
  3. heavy metals
  4. heavy mob
  5. heavy mobs
  6. heavy petting
  7. heavy piece
  8. heavy pieces
  9. heavy plough
  10. heavy ploughs
  11. heavy rail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heavy petting (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)-Flame, not lame-heavy petting.wav.

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