OXFORD 9000
📚 noun • entry_id 10836

incest

/ˈɪn.sɛst/
Meanings (ES + gloss)
incesto
Sexual relations between close relatives, especially immediate family members and sometimes first cousins, usually considered taboo.
For a structuralist like Edmund Leach, the structure is the meaning. Genesis, for example, is about incest taboos; all the rest is noise and mystification.
Genetic problems caused by incest are thought to have plagued many royal families in the Middle Ages.
Word forms