Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use celibate in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Celibate means not married. Example: “Members of religious communities sometimes take vows to remain celibate.”

Examples of celibate by meaning

adjectiveAbstaining from sexual relations and pleasures.

  • Members of religious communities sometimes take vows to remain celibate.
  • Juanita went celibate for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 57

verbTo practice celibacy.

  • However, be that as it may, Stason celebrated with the boys while Hessel celibated alone.1941, Michigan Raw Review, page 34
  • I'm winding up seven years of celibating looking for a patient virgin.1973, Stevens Indicator - Volumes 90-91, page 55
  • TOM: Richard is done with celibating!1983, Jerry Bamman, Ecco!, page 1-36

nounA celibate state; celibacy.

  • And Mrs Gorman had had several admirers, both before and after Mr Gorman, and even during Mr Gorman, and Watt at least two well defined romances, in the course of his celibate.1953, Samuel Beckett, chapter II, in Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC, page 139

More sentences with celibate

  • Like numeraries, assistant numeraries are celibates who live in Opus Dei centres.2024 March 16, Antonia Cundy, “The Opus Dei diaries”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 17. From the entry numerary
  • Joey, on the other hand, claims he is a mentalcel: involuntary celibate due to his mental challenges.2019, Thea Høiland, "Incels and the stories they tell: A narrative analysis of Incels’ shared stories on Reddit", thesis submitted to the…. From the entry mentalcel
  • Alana abbreviated "involuntarily celibate" to "invcel", until someone suggested that "incel" was easier to say.2018 August 29, Jim Taylor, “The woman who founded the 'incel' movement”, in BBC. From the entry abbreviate
  • Incels are mostly losers who don’t get laid — involuntarily celibate.2018 April 25, Oli Dugmore, “What is an incel? A former member of the internet subculture explains”, in JOE. From the entry wizard
  • It’s not clear how far mainstream looksmaxxing has moved away from its roots in online “incel” (involuntarily celibate) communities.2024 February 15, Simon Usborne, “From bone smashing to chin extensions: how ‘looksmaxxing’ is reshaping young men’s faces”, in The…. From the entry looksmaxx
  • Celibates have no faith in the marriage of true minds.1995, Overland, numbers 138-141, page 9. From the entry cuntly
  • Garfield recently discussed how he got into character as a Jesuit priest for the movie Silence by being celibate for half a year.2022 September 21, Brenden Morrow, “The daily gossip: Tom Hardy won a Jiu-Jitsu competition, Shakira is in the 'darkest hour of my life,'…. From the entry rookie numbers
  • Incel is short for “involuntarily celibate”.2018 April 25, Alex Hern, “Who are the 'incels' and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?”, in The Guardian, archived from the…. From the entry manosphere
  • Think it almost turned him celibate.'2011, Christina Jones, Never Can Say Goodbye. From the entry flirt
  • The utopian community at Ephrata flourished for forty years, and the last celibates at Ephrata died after the turn of the century.1994, John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844, →ISBN, page 42. From the entry polity
  • All wear this, but only the celibate priests and higher clergy may cover it with a large black veil (veghar) which hangs down behind.1913, Adrian Fortescue, The Lesser Eastern Churches, page 436. From the entry veghar
  • The dandy must be celibate, cloistral; is, indeed, but a monk with a mirror for beads and breviary—an anchorite, mortifying his soul that his body may be perfect.1911, Max Beerbohm, chapter II, in Zuleika Dobson. From the entry anchorite

Meaning of celibate

  1. adjective Not married.
  2. adjective Abstaining from sexual relations and pleasures.
  3. noun One who is not married, especially one who has taken a religious vow not to get married, usually because of being a member of a religious community.

Full definition of celibate

Questions about celibate in a sentence

How do you use celibate in a sentence?
Celibate is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “Members of religious communities sometimes take vows to remain celibate.”
What is a short sentence with celibate?
“Incel is short for “involuntarily celibate”.”
What does celibate mean?
Celibate means not married.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: celibate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use celibate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/celibate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.