demisexual
de·mi·sex·ual/ˌdɛ.miˈsɛk.ʃu.əl/adjective, noun
demisexual is an adjective meaning “Sexually attracted to people only after a strong emotional bond has been formed” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-E-M-I-S-E-X-U-A-L and has 4 syllables (de·mi·sex·ual), and it appears about once in every 46 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does demisexual mean?
adjective
- 1
Sexually attracted to people only after a strong emotional bond has been formed.
In asexual / ace communities in the past few years, there has been an enormous increase in prominence of people identifying as gray-A and as demisexual, with ‘ace’ now sometimes being used as an umbrella term.
noun
- 1
A person who is demisexual.
Demisexuals experience sexual desire only toward people with whom they already have a strong emotional bond. Like an asexual, a demisexual would not see an attractive woman and immediately desire sex, unless, of course, that attractive woma
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce demisexual?
- UK /ˌdɛ.miːˈsɛk.ʃuː.əl/
- US /ˌdɛ.miˈsɛk.ʃu.əl/
Demisexual has 4 syllables, split de·mi·sex·ual in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-demisexual.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of demisexual
- more demisexual comparative
- most demisexual superlative
- demisexuals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is demisexual?
Demisexual appears about once in every 46 million words in written English, the 209,386th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Demisexual in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense sexually attracted to people only after a strong emotional bond has been formed:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | demissexual |
| Spanish | demisexual |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does demisexual come from?
From demi- (“half”) + -sexual.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).