Oxytocin

//ɑksiˈtoʊsɪn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A hormone that stimulates contractions during labor, and then the production of milk; also plays a role in social bonding. countable, uncountable

    "Some women describe episodes of intense pleasure akin to orgasm during nursing. It would be interesting to know whether the release of oxytocin during suckling plays a role in this subjective feeling, as it may do in actual orgasm."

  2. 2
    hormone secreted by the posterior pituitary gland (trade name Pitocin); stimulates contractions of the uterus and ejection of milk wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
pitocin

Example

More examples

"The OXT gene is responsible for the generation of a substance called oxytocin, often referred to as the “love hormone.”"

Etymology

From oxytocic, from Ancient Greek ὀξύς (oxús, “swift”) + τόκος (tókos, “childbirth”, from τίκτω (tíktō, “I give birth”)).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.