[fawr-ni-key-shuh
n] 
| 1. | voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other. |
| 2. | Bible. idolatry. |
| for·ni·ca·tion (fôr'nĭ-kā'shən) n. Sexual intercourse between partners who are not married to each other. Word History: The word fornication had a lowly beginning suitable to what has long been the low moral status of the act to which it refers. The Latin word fornix, from which fornicātiō, the ancestor of fornication, is derived, meant "a vault, an arch." The term also referred to a vaulted cellar or similar place where prostitutes plied their trade. This sense of fornix in Late Latin yielded the verb fornicārī, "to commit fornication," from which is derived fornicātiō, "whoredom, fornication." Our word is first recorded in Middle English about 1303. |
fornication for·ni·ca·tion (fôr'nĭ-kā'shən)
n.
Sexual intercourse between partners who are not married to each other.
Fornication
in every form of it was sternly condemned by the Mosaic law (Lev. 21:9; 19:29; Deut. 22:20, 21, 23-29; 23:18; Ex. 22:16). (See ADULTERY.) But this word is more frequently used in a symbolical than in its ordinary sense. It frequently means a forsaking of God or a following after idols (Isa. 1:2; Jer. 2:20; Ezek. 16; Hos. 1:2; 2:1-5; Jer. 3:8,9).