incestuous

[ɪnsɛsʧuəs]

Pronunciation Tips:

• Pronounce this word as four syllables, stressing the second one, [s ɛ s] .
• Pronounce the letter "t" as /ʧ/ making the third syllable sound like the word "chew."
• Use the consonant glide /w/ to link from the third to the fourth syllable—from /u/ to [əs].

Practice Sentence:

It was rumored that the father and daughter had an incestuous relationship.

Definition:

• (adjective) Having to do with sexual relationships between persons from the same family, who are forbidden by law to marry each other.

Note:

• Hamlet, commenting on his mother's marrying his uncle so soon after his father's death says:
  "O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
  Would have mourned longer—married with my uncle,
  My father's brother, but no more like my father
  Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
  Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
  Had left the flushing of her gallèd eyes,
  She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
  With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
  It is not, nor it cannot come to good."
  Hamlet, Act I, scene ii, lines 150-158 William Shakespeare (1600)