- carnal
- carnal, fleshly, sensual, animal are comparable when they are used in reference to human beings, their acts, works, desires, and interests and mean having or showing a physical rather than an intellectual or spiritual character or origin. Both carnal and fleshly imply a connection with the body or flesh especially when thought of as distinct from the spirit.Carnal need not in itself imply condemnation{
armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack— Stoker
}Often it is a purely descriptive or classificatory term{a . . . flier with a lyrical gift for conveying the carnal élan of men fighting, was the first writer ever to treat air combat in epic style— Flanner
}but through its frequent opposition to the spiritual it has come to suggest not merely man's bodily but his lower nature and appetites{the superiority of the spiritual and eternal over the carnal and temporal had to be vindicated— H. O. Taylor
}{medieval Christianity tended to restore the conviction that sex, being carnal and not spiritual, is low, lascivious, and wicked— Garvin
}and ultimately to be applied more or less specifically and usually derogatorily to the sexual and the lustful as the most bodily of appetites and the most antithetical to the spiritual nature{to make herself a carnal object, the prey of another, is in contradiction to her self-worship: it seems to her that embraces blight and sully her body or degrade her soul— Parshley
}{he has also three partner antagonists: his wife Lucy and his two mistresses, one a carnal affair, the other "idealistic"— Bentley
}{who more carnal than a recent virgin— Steinbeck
}{had an instant succès du scandale. It titillated the prurient with the frankness of its carnal detail—5. H. Adams
}Fleshly, though it implies a connection with the flesh thought of as man's lower nature, is often less suggestive of condemnation than carnal{turn to Bernard's love of God, and rise with him from the fleshly to the spiritual— H. O. Taylor
}{the godly dame, who fleshly failings damns— Pope
}Sensual implies a connection with sensations, but it further implies an indulgence in bodily sensation for its own sake rather than for an aesthetic end{his feet and hands were always cold and there was for him an almost sensual satisfaction to be had from just lying perfectly still . . . and letting the hot sun beat down on him— Anderson
}Very often the word carries implications of grossness marked by concentration on bodily satisfaction and the absence of intellectual or spiritual qualities{a sloping meaty jaw. and large discolored buckteeth which showed unpleasantly in a mouth . . . always half open . . . that gave his face its sensual, sly, and ugly look— Wolfe
}Animal implies a connection with man's physical nature as distinguished chiefly from his rational nature. It comparatively seldom implies an intent to depreciate{he could never find his Nirvana in mere sensuousness; he could not sink into the mud of animal existence— Parrington
}{the first mood at any war's end is sheer animal joy in survival— Wecter
}{he taught the boy boxing, and shooting, and . . . superintended the direction of his animal vigor— Meredith
}Analogous words: physical, *bodily, corporeal, corporal, somatic: *sensuous: gross, *coarse, vulgar, obscene: *earthly, earthy, worldy, mundane: lustful, lewd, wanton, lascivious (see LICENTIOUS)Antonyms: spiritual: intellectual
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
