fornication

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   sexual intercourse between people who are not married to each other, especially when regarded as illicit in religious or legal doctrine

   The old statute treated fornication as an offense against public morality.

Simplified etymology

Fornication comes from Latin fornix, originally “vault” or “arch.” Because prostitutes in Rome worked beneath certain arches, fornix acquired the sense “brothel,” and in Late Latin it developed into a term for extramarital sex.

From Middle English fornicacioun, through Old French from Latin fornicatio, from fornicari ("to have illicit sex"). The Latin verb is related to fornix ("arch, vaulted chamber"), a word also used for brothels associated with vaulted passages.

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