Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or concerning sexual love and desire; amatory.
- adj. Tending to arouse sexual desire.
- adj. Dominated by sexual love or desire.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to or prompted by love; treating of love; amorous.
- n. An amorous composition or poem.
Wiktionary
- adj. Relating to or tending to arouse sexual desire or excitement.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to the passion of love; treating of love; amatory.
- n. An amorous composition or poem.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. giving sexual pleasure; sexually arousing
- n. an erotic person
Etymologies
- Greek erōtikos, from erōs, erōt-, sexual love.
Examples
“ The word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, which is the term for sexual love itself, as well as the gods name.”
“Honey Money, a recent book that coined the term "erotic capital" defined as "beauty, sex appeal, liveliness, a talent for dressing well, charm and social skills and sexual competence".”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“Ms. Lagarde possesses an abundance of what I call "erotic capital," and she has used it knowingly and to great advantage.”
The Wall Street Journal: The Untapped Power of Erotic Capital
“The twist the story then takes into the erotic is a step out of narrative convention and into a kind of fantastic freefall that leaves all the usual responses to family breakdown far behind.”
“Needing to create a compromise between fear and desire, he devised what he called erotic friendship.”
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“…we can even use the word erotic to describe a yearning for unity to overcome separation.”
“He was reviled and revered for his glossy spreads of naked co-eds in erotic photos, which followed "the philosophy of voyeurism," he once said.”
“The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that, in erotic terms, is the Catholic Church in a nutshell.”
“What one person finds erotic is not the same for another.”
“I've also become more interested in erotic romances.”
Angels' Blood Countdown: Jasmine Haynes - The first two Fortune Hunter books
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘erotic’.
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Naked
Words relating to getting naked, being naked, the commonly naked, nakedness (partial or complete), and similar.
denude, strip, stripper, harlot, Cyprian, fancy woman, lady of pleasure, hooker, divest, unfrock, unclothe, disrobe and 112 more...
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 322 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Anxiety
apprehension =wor..., regularity, dread, brood, palpitation, gradual, troublesome, virtually, irrational=unreas..., phobia=irrational..., phobic=fearful= adj, affiliated=united and 54 more...
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Mythical Qualities
Adjectives derived from mythological figures
saturnine, apollonian, dionysian, oedipal, mercurial, martial, erotic, aphrodisiac, orphic, titanic, herculean, puckish and 20 more...
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Words of Beauty
the images
iridescent, void, vacuum, rapture, chaos, melancholy, somnambulant, ethereal, somnolescent, caress, intimate, mellifluous and 13 more...
CuriousJon My first and only exposure to the word LUSTALGIA happened in the mid-1960s in Los Angeles. A morning announcer used it in a now-forgotten sentence as I drove to graduate school at UCLA. The sense was nostalgic memories with lust as a theme.
For the 'Free Love' movement then in near full-flower, I believe it is a word that ought to be more widely used, at least to ones self, with a glimmer of a smile and a memory flash!
Probably best considered a noun or adjective: "The small group of friends from the 60s drifted into exchanging sweetly lustalgic memories of what had been, what might have been, what should have been, and, luckily, what never had been more than a memory of a private, still powerful fantasy." Sep 21, 2009