Dictionary

contrectation en · NOUN

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin contrectātio, from contrectō (“to touch”).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The initial stage of the sexual act involving manual contact and tumescence; sexual foreplay.
   • [W]e frequently meet with pubescent boys in whom the contrectation impulse, or the psychic component of sex, appears in isolated form. 1946, A. A. Brill, Lectures on Psychoanalytic Psychiatry, Alfred Knopf, page 189:
   • Most animals have no desire for contrectation. In man the impulse of contrectation is the more important. 1915, Bernard Simon Talmey, Love, a Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction, page 107:
   • Not to spoil his pleasure she allowed him the most intimate contrectations, stopping short only at cunnilingus. 1916, American journal of urology and sexology, volume 12, page 165:
2. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) A touching or handling; manipulation.

Forms