continence

1. 1.

   the exercise of self constraint in sexual matters

   Synonymscontinency

   Broaderself-discipline
2. 2.

   voluntary control over urinary and fecal discharge

   Broaderrestraint

Other forms of continence

plural

continences·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about continence

What does continence mean?

continence means "the exercise of self constraint in sexual matters". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in continence?

continence has 3 syllables: con-ti-nence. The stress falls on "con".

What is another word for continence?

Close synonyms include continency. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is continence a common word?

continence is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.