How to Use copulate in a Sentence
copulate
verb- Some animals have complex mating rituals before they copulate.
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In some species, males may even refuse to copulate with certain females.
—Zuleyma Tang-Martinez, Smithsonian, 24 Jan. 2017
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In some species, males may even refuse to copulate with certain females.
—Zuleyma Tang-Martinez, Smithsonian, 24 Jan. 2017
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A few weeks ago the pair, named Monty and Rose, began copulating, said Giometti.
—Morgan Greene, chicagotribune.com, 14 June 2019
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Even with the copulating couple caught on camera, the attention is all on the child's response to the spectacle.
—Marlisse Cepeda, Woman's Day, 26 Jan. 2015
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Or a wet-denim-fetish site, where the turn-on seems to be jumping into a pool or showering with jeans on, then copulating.
—Lucas Peterson, GQ, 22 May 2017
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In one instance, he is accused of using a trip to a sporting event to rape and forcibly orally copulate a student-athlete.
—Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2022
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The males thrash around trying to copulate, covering themselves with pollen.
—Kristin Ohlson, Discover Magazine, 2 Jan. 2019
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Males will try to copulate not only with females, but also other males.
—Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 29 June 2019
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As a couple, we were finished, though still copulating.
—Matthew Klam, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2020
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The notorious sculpture depicts Pan, rustic god of the wild, copulating with a she-goat.
—Christopher Knight, latimes.com, 3 July 2019
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Out of 52 pairings of mice, there were no pregnancies among mice that copulated within the 2.5-hour window, Balbach said.
—Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY, 16 Feb. 2023
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These tiny guys copulate for up to 14 hours at a time, during which frenzied marsupial males' levels of testosterone and stress hormones skyrocket.
—Breanna Draxler, Discover Magazine, 9 Oct. 2013
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In two reported cases, females feasted on birds while copulating with males.
—Natalie Angier, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2017
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Under pressure to copulate quickly, these males have developed gonopodia with longer tips that are more densely covered in bony structures—perhaps for gripping.
—Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 25 Aug. 2015
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In some species males increase their reproductive success by forcing females to copulate with them, usually by grasping the female or pinning her to the ground to prevent her from escaping.
—Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 21 June 2016
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These include someone washing a cucumber, copulating wind-up toy rabbits, a phallic fungus, a beaver, the Washington Monument, the pop of a champagne cork, and the sensuous blossoming of a flower.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 30 Dec. 2019
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Danish challengers, asked to make a dessert fit for a bachelor party, offered buttercream buttocks and fondant figures copulating under the covers.
—The Economist, 31 Aug. 2017
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In the communal web, female Philoponella prominens rarely leave, whereas their male counterparts venture to other webs to mate and can copulate with a female spider up to six times before moving onto another one, Zhang said.
—Megan Marples, CNN, 26 Apr. 2022
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Modern zoologists, however, have investigated why males would copulate when there was obviously no chance of reproduction.
—Sophie Bushwick, Discover Magazine, 12 June 2012
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'copulate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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