Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Remaining sound, entire, or uninjured; not impaired in any way.
  • adjective Having all physical parts, especially.
  • adjective Having the hymen unbroken.
  • adjective Not castrated.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Untouched, especially by anything that harms or defiles; uninjured; left complete, whole, or unimpaired.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Untouched, especially by anything that harms, defiles, or the like; uninjured; undefiled; left complete or entire.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Untouched, especially by anything that harms, defiles, or the like; uninjured; whole; undefiled; left complete or entire; not damaged.
  • adjective Uncircumcised; commonly used to describe a penis with a foreskin in intactivism.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (used of domestic animals) sexually competent
  • adjective (of a woman) having the hymen unbroken
  • adjective constituting the undiminished entirety; lacking nothing essential especially not damaged
  • adjective undamaged in any way

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin intāctus : in-, not; see in– + tāctus, past participle of tangere, to touch; see tag- in Indo-European roots.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word intact.

Examples

  • I realize I'm inviting much ridicule from my friends on the left, but I'm going to write this post anyway, and I'm going to leave the title intact - Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous.

    Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous Turk, Michael 2009

  • I left the title intact but change the instances in the text.

    Tired/Wired #1 « Jahsonic 2008

  • The reason why the identification will remain intact is that identified works compete on an equal footing, if not better, with any illegal, unidentified copies; there is no penalty for holding a properly identified copy so why risk holding an illegal copy?

    Copyright in a digital world 2005

  • Among the pairings that remain intact from the previous 10 matches are

    International team turns tables 2000

  • Why leave a phrase intact when it could be with profit rephrased?

    News - latimes.com 2011

  • All medications - prescription and over-the-counter - with the label intact should be brought in to the auditorium of the Alachua County Health Department, 224 S.E. 24th St., between 5 and 7 p.m.

    Local News from The Gainesville Sun 2009

  • He'll have to survive a best-of-seven slam to walk away with the title intact and the $100 prize!

    GotPoetry.com News 2008

  • He'll have to survive a best-of-seven slam to walk away with the title intact and the $100 prize!

    GotPoetry.com News 2008

  • He'll have to survive a best-of-seven slam to walk away with the title intact and the $100 prize!

    GotPoetry.com News 2008

  • He'll have to survive a best-of-seven slam to walk away with the title intact and the $100 prize!

    GotPoetry.com News 2008

  • Where does the term "partial-birth" abortion come from? The term was first coined by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in 1995 to describe a recently introduced medical procedure to remove fetuses from the womb. Alternately known as "dilation and extraction," or D&X, and "intact D&E," it involves removing the fetus intact by dilating a pregnant woman's cervix, then pulling the entire body out through the birth canal. After a physician presented a paper at a conference of the National Abortion Federation describing the new procedure, the NRLC commissioned drawings to illustrate it and published them in booklet form, as well as placing them as paid advertisements in newspapers to build public opposition. In an interview with The New Republic magazine in 1996, the NRLC's Douglas Johnson explained that the term was thought up in hopes that "as the public learns what a 'partial-birth abortion' is, they might also learn something about other abortion methods, and that this would foster a growing opposition to abortion." In 1995, Rep. Charles Canady (R-FL) included the term as part of a bill he proposed that would make it a federal crime to perform a "partial-birth" abortion.

    Bulky Cameras, Meet The Lens-less FlatCam Julie Rovner 2006

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