Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not restrained; uncontrolled: incontinent rage.
- adj. Lacking normal voluntary control of excretory functions.
- adj. Lacking sexual restraint; unchaste.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not continent; not holding or held in; unceasing or unrestrained: as, an incontinent tattler; an incontinent flow of talk. Specifically
- Unrestrained in indulgence of appetite or passion; intemperate in sexual intercourse; unchaste; licentious.
- In medicine, unable to restrain natural discharges or evacuations.
- Not delayed; immediate; offhand.
- n. One who is incontinent or unchaste.
- Incontinently; instantly; immediately.
Wiktionary
- adj. Unable to contain or retain.
- adj. Lacking the ability to restrain natural discharges or evacuations of urination or defecation.
- adj. Lacking moral or sexual restraint, moderation or self-control, especially of sexual desire.
- adj. Unrestrained or unceasing.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not continent; uncontrolled; not restraining the passions or appetites, particularly the sexual appetite; indulging unlawful lust; unchaste; lewd.
- adj. (Med.) Unable to restrain natural evacuations, such as urination or defecation.
- n. One who is unchaste.
- adv. obsolete Incontinently; instantly; immediately.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not having control over urination and defecation
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin incontinēns, incontinent-, unrestrained : in-, not; see in-1 + continēns, continent; see continent2. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“That is why the word incontinent doesn't mean flying between European countries.”
“It would seem you are decidedly of opinion that the incontinent are the reverse of free?”
“But such, though as much led away as the others, we do not in like manner call incontinent and intemperate, since they are ruined through ignorance and want of experience.”
“For it is not the man who gives way to any sort of pleasure whatever who is called incontinent, but only he who gives way to a certain kind of pleasure.”
“To have these various types of habit is beyond the limits of vice, as brutishness is too; for a man who has them to master or be mastered by them is not simple (continence or) incontinence but that which is so by analogy, as the man who is in this condition in respect of fits of anger is to be called incontinent in respect of that feeling but not incontinent simply.”
“Now those in whom nature is the cause of such a state no one would call incontinent, any more than one would apply the epithet to women because of the passive part they play in copulation; nor would one apply it to those who are in a morbid condition as a result of habit.”
“This being so, (a) those who go to excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right rule which is in themselves, are not called incontinent simply, but incontinent with the qualification ‘in respect of money, gain, honour, or anger’, - not simply incontinent, on the ground that they are different from incontinent people and are called incontinent by reason of a resemblance.”
“For so he that makes the baser element subject to the better has self-control and is a superior man, whereas he who allows the nobler element of the soul to follow and be subservient to the incorrigible and unreasoning element, is inferior to what he might be, and is called incontinent, and is in an unnatural condition.”
“This being so, (a) those who go to excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right rule which is in themselves, are not called incontinent simply, but incontinent with the qualification 'in respect of money, gain, honour, or anger', - not simply incontinent, on the ground that they are different from incontinent people and are called incontinent by reason of a resemblance.”
“But (b) of the people who are incontinent with respect to bodily enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent man are concerned, he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant-and shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and cold and all the objects of touch and taste-not by choice but contrary to his choice and his judgement, is called incontinent, not with the qualification ‘in respect of this or that’, e.g. of anger, but just simply.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘incontinent’.
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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 4087 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
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fifi
verbs Adj Adv noun
indulge, convene, solve, dissolve, prospect, prospective, allege, resolve, accountable, administration, amid, agenda and 407 more...
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Tolland's list
Those I've come across and try to keep fresh within my mind.
clandestine, dysphoric, indictive, vigil, fractious, assiduous, indefatigable, ubiquitous, insidious, paroicous, aplomb, sangfroid and 654 more...
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dienekes's Words
chutzpah, lexicon, intrepid, pedagogical, schlemiel, schism, erudite, anathema, pugilist, jaunty, paradigm, automaton and 949 more...
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakam...
found while reading
frontispiece, expedient, dapple, sheaf, downy, rivet, curriculum vitae, furtive, austerity, rebuke, prognostication, pedigree and 99 more...
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frequent toefl
Words that I do not know or unsure for toefl
appurtenances, aptitude, arbitrary, arboretum, argot, arrears, avocation, avuncular, badger, bait, warden, bane and 428 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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GRE 3500 I
ignoble, ignominy, illicit, illimitable, imbibe, immaculate, impale, impalpable, impart, impasse, impassive, impeccable and 96 more...
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set 1
set 1
caulk, derelict, bilious, gratuitous, propensity, terse, condone, milieu, cavalier, roseate, garish, ventriloquist and 33 more...
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phil vocab 2
tribunal, inculcation, confounds, indisputable, susceptible, faculty, hypothetical, heterogeneous, homogeneous, convention, fluctuation, incontinent and 38 more...
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difficult-list25
inchoate, incidence, inclement, inclusive, incommodious, incongruity, inconsequential, incontinent, incorporate, incorporeal, incorrigible, incredulity and 25 more...
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Knowledge
words i have looked up
caveat, pernicious, chimera, proselytizing, benevolent, omniscience, egregious, incontinent
Tweets
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