carnal: [15] Carnal means literally ‘of the flesh’; it comes from late Latin carnālis, a derivative of Latin carō ‘flesh, meat’. Other English words from the same source are carnivorous ‘meateating’ [17]; carnage [16], which came via French carnage and Italian carnaggio from medieval Latin carnāticum ‘slaughter of animals’; carnation [16], which originally meant ‘pink, colour of flesh’ and came via French carnation and Italian carnagione from late Latin carnātiō ‘fleshiness, fatness’; charnel [14], as in charnel house, from Old French charnel; and also carnival and carrion. => carnage, carnation, carnival, carnivorous, carrion, charnel
c. 1400, "physical, human, mortal," from Old French carnal and directly from Medieval Latin carnalis "natural, of the same blood," from Latin carnis "of the flesh," genitive of caro "flesh, meat" (see carnage). Meaning "sensual" is from early 15c.; that of "worldly, sinful" is from mid-15c. Carnal knowledge is attested from early 15c. and was in legal use by 1680s.
