Miscegenation (/mɪˌsɛdʒᵻˈneɪʃən/; from the Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation. Because of the term's historical use in contexts that typically implied disapproval, more unambiguously neutral terms such as interracial, interethnic or cross-cultural are more common in contemporary usage.