Meaning & use
fellatio
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountableformaltechnical
A sexual act in which one person uses the mouth to stimulate another person's penis.
Grammar: Uncountable and clinical: a document may refer to fellatio without any informal slang.
Patterns
- perform fellatio
- engage in fellatio
The textbook defines fellatio in its chapter on human sexuality.
The court record used the word fellatio rather than slang.
Health leaflets explain that infections can pass through fellatio.
Common combinations
- perform fellatio
- The article described what it means to perform fellatio in clinical terms.
- engage in fellatio
- The survey asked how many adults engage in fellatio.
- fellatio and cunnilingus
- Health classes sometimes name fellatio and cunnilingus as forms of oral sex.
- risk of infection through fellatio
- The doctor discussed the risk of infection through fellatio.
Synonyms and how they differ
- oral sex
- Oral sex is the common, neutral phrase and covers acts on any partner, while fellatio refers only to oral contact with the penis.
- blow job
- Blow job is vulgar slang for the same act and is unsuitable in formal writing.
Word family
- fellate verb
- to perform fellatio
- fellator noun
- a person who performs fellatio
- cunnilingus noun
- the matching clinical term for oral sex performed on a woman
Commonly confused: fellatio or fallacy?
fellatio vs fallacy
Fallacy means a mistaken belief and is unrelated; the two words only look partly alike.
Practice
Which word is the clinical, formal term for a particular kind of oral sex?
Choose one answer.
Fellatio is the formal term used in medical and legal writing. The other words are real English words but have different meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fellatio”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.