deflower
/di:'flauə/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Verb:
- To deprive of virginity: To have sexual intercourse with someone, especially a woman, for the first time, thereby ending their virginity. This usage often carries connotations of taking or violating innocence.
- To make imperfect; to mar or spoil: To ruin the purity, perfection, or beauty of something. This is a more literary or figurative sense.
Usage Examples
- Verb (deprive of virginity):
- The novel's villain sought to deflower the young heroine.
- Historical accounts sometimes brutally note when conquering armies deflowered the daughters of a captured city.
- Verb (make imperfect):
- The vandals deflowered the pristine landscape with their garbage.
- Time and neglect had deflowered the grandeur of the once-magnificent palace.
Advanced Usage
- The term is often used in historical, literary, or legal contexts. In modern everyday English regarding consensual first sexual experience, terms like "lose one's virginity" are more neutral and common.
- The figurative sense ("to mar") is now rare and considered archaic or highly literary.
Variants and Related Words
- Defloration (noun): The act of deflowering.
- The theme of defloration is common in Gothic literature.
Synonyms
- Violate: To break, infringe, or transgress; often used in the context of sexual assault.
- Ravish: To seize and carry off by force; to rape. (Archaic or literary)
- Despoil: To strip of possessions, things of value, etc.; to rob, plunder, or ruin. (Closer to the figurative "mar" sense)
Notes on Meaning and Usage
- The primary and most common contemporary meaning relates to the loss of virginity. Due to its often violent or non-consensual connotations in this sense, the word can be considered offensive, outdated, or misogynistic when applied to a person.
- The secondary meaning ("to mar") is extremely rare in modern usage.
Verb
- make imperfect
- nothing marred her beauty
- deprive of virginity
- This dirty old man deflowered several young girls in the village