Meaning & use
extramarital
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Describing a sexual or romantic relationship that a married person has with someone other than their husband or wife.
Grammar: Placed before the noun it describes: an extramarital affair.
Patterns
- an extramarital affair
- extramarital relationship
The newspaper reported that the senator had an extramarital affair.
Counselors say extramarital relationships often follow long periods of distance.
She discovered evidence of his extramarital activities.
adjectivebefore a nountechnical
Taking place outside marriage in a general sense, used in law and social research.
Grammar: Appears in formal or academic writing: extramarital births, extramarital sex.
Patterns
- extramarital sex
- extramarital births
The survey measured attitudes toward extramarital sex across several countries.
Laws on extramarital births have changed greatly in the last century.
The study tracked extramarital partnerships among adults over forty.
Common combinations
- extramarital affair
- The actor denied the extramarital affair rumors.
- extramarital relationship
- An extramarital relationship can end a trust built over decades.
- extramarital sex
- The survey asked whether extramarital sex is acceptable.
- extramarital activity
- Her husband's extramarital activity came to light during the divorce.
Synonyms and how they differ
- adulterous
- Adulterous is harsher and carries moral or legal judgement, while extramarital is a more neutral, descriptive word.
- unfaithful
- Unfaithful describes the person's behavior toward a spouse, not the relationship itself.
- illicit
- Illicit means forbidden in a broader sense and need not involve marriage at all.
Opposites
Word family
- marital adjective
- relating to marriage
- premarital adjective
- happening before marriage
- marriage noun
- the legal union of two people
- postmarital adjective
- happening after a marriage ends
Commonly confused: extramarital or extramural?
extramarital vs extramural
Extramural means outside the walls of an institution, such as extra courses taken outside a university, and has nothing to do with marriage.
Practice
The magazine published a report on the minister's ____ affair.
Choose one answer.
Extramarital describes an affair outside a marriage. Premarital means before marriage, and intramural belongs to activities within an institution.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “extramarital”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.