Meaning & use
onanist
A person who masturbates, a term drawn from the biblical figure Onan.
See it in a sentence
The old medical pamphlet used the outdated term onanist to describe the practice.
Victorian writers often discussed the supposed dangers of being an onanist with exaggerated alarm.
A note on using this word
Onanist is a dated, formal, or clinical term; modern English rarely uses it outside historical or literary contexts.
Words with a similar meaning
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