Definition of "incest" []

• Sexual relations between persons who are so closely related that their marriage is illegal or forbidden by custom. (noun)
• The statutory crime of sexual relations with such a near relative. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The word incest conjures ideas of sex, but there was never any sex between my father and me."
• "When I began my job assisting with the younger girls, I heard the word incest for the first time."
• "And of course the word incest had still not been so much as whispered in daylight."