The word oral may refer to:
As an adjective:
- the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food and saliva
- speech communication as opposed to writing
- oral administration of medicines
- oral schools, schools that use oralism to teach the deaf
- oral stage, Sigmund Freud's name for a child's development during the first 0 to 18 months of life, in which an infant's pleasure centers are in the mouth
- oral sex, sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat
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Famous quotes containing the word oral:
“The Americans are violently oral.... That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all—isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)