promiscuous
- 1Having many sexual partners, especially without being selective in choosing them.
Researchers were surprised to find that the supposedly faithful birds were quite promiscuous.
He was hurt by the rumor that he had been promiscuous in college.
UsageSaid of people it sounds judgmental; of animals it is neutral. Has had many partners avoids the sting.
Similarloose
Oppositemonogamous, faithful, chaste
Note
Applied to a person, the word carries a judgment as well as a description, and it can wound: Singapore's 2023 amendments to its Women's Charter count spreading false rumors that a spouse is promiscuous as emotional or psychological abuse.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Singapore amended its Women’s Charter in 2023 to address emotional or psychological abuse. elitigation.sg
- The amendments identify spreading false rumours about one’s spouse being promiscuous as emotional or psychological abuse. elitigation.sg
- 2Made or done without careful choice or selection.
The promiscuous use of antibiotics on farms has helped resistant bacteria spread.
His essays suffer from a promiscuous habit of quoting anyone who agrees with him.
UsageFormal and critical, often in promiscuous use of something: promiscuous use of antibiotics.
Similarindiscriminate, careless, haphazard, unselective
Oppositeselective, discriminating, careful
- 3Made up of different, unrelated elements mixed together in a disorderly way.
The attic held a promiscuous heap of old letters, broken toys, and winter coats.
The museum's early collection was promiscuous, with Roman coins displayed beside stuffed birds and seashells.
Similarmotley
Note
Latin prōmiscuus meant "mixed, not separated", and this is the sense nearest to it. Milton's "promiscuous croud" in Paradise Lost (1667) is simply a mixed throng, and George Eliot's Middlemarch describes an upbringing planned "at once narrow and promiscuous", a jumble of schemes. When the word turns up in older books, read it this way before reaching for the sexual meaning.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Latin prōmiscuus meant mixed or not separate. en.wiktionary.org
- John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, first published in 1667. wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk
- Paradise Lost contains the exact phrase promiscuous croud, describing the assembled throng rather than sexual behaviour. en.wikisource.org
- George Eliot’s Middlemarch describes the sisters’ education as planned at once narrow and promiscuous; the words are narration. gutenberg.org
- 4Of a network interface card or its mode, set to capture all network traffic it sees rather than only the traffic addressed to it.
To capture every packet on the segment, the analyst put the interface into promiscuous mode.
The security tool raises an alert whenever a laptop's network card switches to promiscuous mode.
UsageAlmost always in promiscuous mode.
Note
The networking term takes the indiscriminate meaning literally: a network card in promiscuous mode stops choosing. Normally it drops frames addressed to other machines; in this mode it passes everything up to the system, which is how packet-capture tools watch a network. On a switched network it still sees less than you might expect, because a switch sends most frames only toward their destination.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Promiscuous mode disables destination-address filtering and delivers all received packets to the host, explaining the comparison with indiscriminate selection. wiki.wireshark.org
- Normally, a network card drops frames addressed to other machines; broadcast and accepted multicast frames are exceptions. en.wikipedia.org
- In promiscuous mode, the interface supplies the host with all network packets it sees. wireshark.org
- Packet-capture tools use promiscuous mode when capturing network traffic. wireshark.org
- A switch limits the traffic visible at a capture port by forwarding unicast traffic toward its destination. wiki.wireshark.org
Practice
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Origin
Latin prō ("forth") and misceō ("mix") combined to make prōmiscuus ("mixed, not separated"), the source of this word.