• enPR: sĕks, IPA: /sɛks/

From Middle English sexe, from Old French sexe, from Latin sexus, from itc-pro *seksus, from Proto-Indo-European *séksus, from *sek-, thus meaning "section, division" (into male and female).

Usage for women influenced by Middle French sexe (attested in 1580). Usage for third and additional sexes calqued from French troisième sexe, referring to masculine women in 1817 and homosexuals in 1847.

sex

1. (countable) A category into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species.

   The effect of the medication is dependent upon age, sex, and other factors.

   • 1994, Valerie Harms, Uc Rodale Nat Aud Enviro, page 268:

     I would never have guessed […] that slime molds can have thirteen sexes.

2. (countable) Another category, especially of humans and especially based on sexuality or gender roles.
   • 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC ↗:

     Still there are some loop-holes out of which a man may creep, and dare to think and act for himself; but for a woman it is an herculean task, because she has difficulties peculiar to her sex to overcome, which require almost super-human powers.

   • 1817, The works of Claudian, tr. into Engl. verse by A. Hawkins, page 43:

     "But now another sex, in arms, is brought, / And, realms to guard, are eunuchs able thought!"

   • 1821 August 7, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, Cantos III, IV, and V, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC ↗, canto V, stanza XXVI:

     A black old neutral personage / Of the third sex stept up.

   • 1992, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, volume 118, page 23:

     I have encountered officers who believe a woman got a better assignment or somehow "got over" because of her sex.

3. (countable) The members of such a category, taken collectively.
   • 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes, section 774:

     It was a weakness / In me, but incident to all our sex.

   • 1780, Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals & Legislation, vi, §35:

     The sensibility of the female sex appears […] to be greater than that of the male.

4. (uncountable) The distinction and relation between these categories, especially in humans; gender.
5. (obsolete or literary, uncountable, with "the") Women; the human female gender and those who belong to it.
   • 1789 November 2, Arthur Young, Travels... undertaken with a view of ascertaining the cultivation... of the kingdom of France, i, 220:

     The sex of Venice are undoubtedly of a distinguished beauty.

   • 1862, [William] Wilkie Collins, chapter IV, in No Name. […], volume II, London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co., […], →OCLC ↗, 4th (Aldborough, Suffolk), page 195 ↗:

     Even the reptile temperament of Noel Vanstone warmed under the influence of the sex: he had an undeniably appreciative eye for a handsome woman, and Magdalen's grace and beauty were not thrown away on him.

6. (uncountable) Sexual activity, usually sexual intercourse unless preceded by a modifier.
   • 1929, D.H. Lawrence, Pansies, section 57:

     If you want to have sex, you've got to trust / At the core of your heart, the other creature.

   • 1934, translation of the Qur'an (23:5) by Abdullah Yusuf Ali

     (The believers ... those ... ) who abstain from sex

   • 1962 June 7, The Listener, 1006/2:

     Why wasn't Bond ‘more tender’ in his love-making? Why did he just ‘have sex’ and disappear?

7. (countable, euphemism or slang) Genitalia: a penis or vagina/vulva.
   • 1664, Thomas Killigrew, Princess, ii, ii:

     Another ha's gon through with the bargain... One that will find the way to her Sex, before you'le come to kissing her hand.

   • 1938, David Gascoyne, Hölderlin's Madness, section 18:

     And the black cypresses strained upwards like the sex of a hanged man.

   • 1993, Catherine Coulter, The Heiress Bride, page 354:

     She touched his sex with her hand.

• (divisions of organisms by reproductive role) gender (proscribed when referring to humans: see usage note)
• (copulation) See also Thesaurus:copulation

see sex/translations

sex (sexes, present participle sexing; simple past and past participle sexed)

1. (zoology, transitive) To determine the sex of (an animal).
2. (chiefly, US, colloquial, transitive) To have sex with.
   • 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 102 ↗:

     As good as Muddah had handled me in bed, sexing her hadn't done a damn thing to take my mind off my cousin Smoove.

3. (chiefly, US, colloquial, intransitive) To have sex.
   • 1921 August 20, Kenneth Burke, letter to Malcolm Cowley:

     Our baby is eighteen months old now, and cries when we sex

• (to have sex) do it, get it on, have sex; see also Thesaurus:copulate

see sex/translations

From sect.

sex (plural sexes)

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of sect.