carnal

What it means

1. Relating to the physical and especially sexual appetites or activities.

   At the town of Mendes, in the principal temple, there was a living male goat, with which, if the statement of Herodotus is to be accepted, naked female worshippers actually had carnal intercourse.

   1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page 29

2. Worldly or earthly; temporal.
3. Of or relating to the body or flesh.

In a sentence

At the town of Mendes, in the principal temple, there was a living male goat, with which, if the statement of Herodotus is to be accepted, naked female worshippers actually had carnal intercourse.

1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page 29

Where it comes from

1. Late Latincarnālis“fleshy”
2. Old Frenchcharnel
3. Middle Englishcarnal
4. Englishcarnal

From Middle English carnal, from Old French charnel, from Late Latin carnālis (“fleshy”), from oblique stem of Latin carō, carnis (“meat, flesh”) + -ālis (whence -al).