These words refer to a state of being filled with sexual feelings or to things designed to call up such feelings. Erotic , stemming from Eros, the God of Love in Greek mythology, stresses specifically sexual love. The word can refer either to such feelings or to things eliciting these feelings: aware of his own erotic impulses; an erotic film. Sensual can also refer to either situation, but it refers to sexual desire only by implication. Theoretically, it should indicate someone given to a life of the senses or something appealing to the senses, but the word has been used suggestively, perhaps euphemistically, so often that sexual desire in inevitably a part of its reference, although not so strongly insisted upon as in the case of erotic : a sensual appetite for exotic women; sensual music to which veiled women danced.

Concupiscent is a learned synonym for lustful, coming from Latin roots meaning to desire intensely. It focuses on fleshly desire that seeks its own gratification, as contrasted with unselfish love, and it carries the implication of original sin: a concupiscent husband, unfaithful to his wife; the concupiscent elements in human character.

Desirous , amorous and passionate refer exclusively to someone filled with erotic feeling. Desirous may suggest a vague longing or lack, without an object in view, or it may suggest a specific sexual wish for a particular object: desirous of a kind of woman he had never met; He became more and more desirous and she seemed more and more desirable the more she rebuffed his advances. In the latter case, desirous suggests a distinction between sexual eagerness and love. Amorous is consequently warmer in feeling, since it can suggest an affectionate desire for lovemaking or sex play: a wife smiling back at her amorous husband. Passionate is more intense than either desirous or amorous , but it may or may not be divorced in its intensity from notions of affectionate love: a nymphomaniac making passionate advances to a strange man; proposals of marriage that grew more and more passionate .

Sexy is the most informal of all these words. It may be applied to any person or thing that seems to project, radiate or intensify sex appeal: a very sexy girl; a sexy walk; a sexy , form-fitting sweater. Used of books, plays, films and the like, the word points to a titillating preoccupation with sex: a sexy novel. Arousing refers solely to those things that call up sexual desire: a coy manner deliberately designed to be arousing .