Primary
''promiscuous'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250816112411-00-⌔
promiscuous - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Adjective
promiscuous (comparative more promiscuous, superlative most promiscuous)
- Made up of various disparate elements mixed together; of disorderly composition.
- ✤ Synonym: motley
- ✤ Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,/While the promiscuous croud stood yet aloof.1
- ✤ [T]hey had both been educated […] on plans at once narrow and promiscuous, first in an English family and afterwards in a Swiss family at Lausanne, their bachelor uncle and guardian trying in this way to remedy the disadvantages of their orphaned condition.2
- Made without careful choice; indiscriminate.
- ✤ A sail caught by a promiscuous wind.
- Having many sexual partners, especially if indiscriminate in choice of sexual partners.
- ✤ X spreads false rumours to third parties about X’s spouse being promiscuous. X’s spouse finds out about the rumours and is distressed. X has committed emotional or psychological abuse against X’s spouse.3
- (networking) The mode in which an NIC gathers all network traffic instead of getting only the traffic intended for it.
Etymology
From Latin prōmiscuus (“mixed, not separated”), from prō (“forth”) + misceō (“mix”).
Pronunciation
- IPA: /pɹəˈmɪs.kju.əs/
- Audio (Australian): 🔊
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 379-80: ↩
1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I, page 4: ↩
2023, Parliament of Singapore, “Women’s Charter (Family Violence and Other Matters) (Amendment) Bill”, in Republic of Singapore Government Gazette , page 5: ↩
Secondary
• • •