non-penetrativeadj.
/nɒnˈpɛnᵻtrətɪv/, U.S. /nɑnˈpɛnəˌtreɪdɪv/, /nɑnˈpɛnətrədɪv/ 1. Not involving or capable of penetration; not penetrative. Occasionally in extended use: not strong or energetic in action; lacking in force.
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1932 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) B. 221 53 Whether or not the presence of this cuticular border is causally related to the non-penetrative character of the trophoblast..we are not prepared to say.
1964 Jrnl. Alabama Acad. Sci. 35 68 (title) Nonpenetrative methods of prospecting for coal.
1972 Jrnl. Palestine Stud. 1 69 Louis J. Cantori..inquire[s] whether parties are ‘penetrative’ or ‘non-penetrative.’ The former type displays articulated party organization at all levels and areas of society.
1996 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 17 Aug. 28 New methods of working to..minimise exposure to tissues of cattle that might be carrying the BSE agent..include the use of non-penetrative methods of stunning cattle at slaughter.
2001 This is Local London (Nexis) 26 Sept. Watford's display over the first 70 minutes..duplicated the hesitant, non-penetrative approach that blighted their chances at Manchester City.
2. Geology. Of a feature, structure, or texture: localized or present only on a surface; not uniformly distributed in space.
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the world > the earth > structure of the earth > structural features > [adjective] > surface or top-set
exogenous1845
exogenetic1914
exogenic1942
non-penetrative1976
1976 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 283 343 The folds are non-penetrative features and... result from soft-sediment slumping.
1985 Bull. Geol. Surv. Ireland 3 237 Lower Palaeozoic rocks in southeast Ireland commonly display a single penetrative fabric affected by later non-penetrative features.
1998 Tectonophysics 290 111 Alpine metamorphic effects within the Southern Carpathians are generally nonpenetrative.
3. Physics. Of convection: not penetrating into non-convective layers.
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1979 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 76 2518/2 Buoyancy accumulates over the summer and fall and is lost down to about 450 m in depth during..late winter, the convection being mostly nonpenetrative.
1990 Jrnl. Appl. Meteorol. 29 762 The method is examined by using laboratory data for nonpenetrative convection and large-eddy simulation..results for penetration convention.
1996 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 452 101 For the non-penetrative convection case in which ρ is a linear function of T, the strong form of the principle of exchange of stabilities holds.
4. Of sexual activity: in which penetration by the penis does not take place.
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1984 J. Tonkiss et al. in Physiol. & Behavior 32 397 Early life undernutrition reduced the numbers of non-penetrative mounts and shortened the latency to ejaculate in rats.
1986 Times (Nexis) 31 Dec. The solution may be not to go to bed with chaps you don't know well, but that solution is implicit I expect in the new non-penetrative sex.
1993 J. Green It: Sex since Sixties 228 The concept of safe sex developed—it was essentially non-penetrative, and participants attempted not to swap bodily fluids.
2001 Reuters (Electronic ed.) 21 Feb. Non-penetrative sex, like ‘thigh sex’, was once taught by elders among the Zulu community of Kwa Zulu-Natal provinces.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1932