English Explanatory Dictionary

obscene

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Offensive to standards of decency or morality.
  2. Lewd or lustful.
  3. Disgusting or repulsive.
  4. Beyond all reason; excessive.
  5. Liable to corrupt or deprave.
verb
  1. To act or speak in an obscene manner; to offend.

Pronunciation

/əbˈsiːn/ əb-sēnʹ /əbˈsin/ En-us-obscene.ogg

Word forms

obscene obscener more obscene obscenest most obscene obscæne obscenes obscening obscened

Etymology

From Middle French obscene (modern French obscène (“indecent, obscene”)), and from its etymon Latin obscēnus, obscaenus (“inauspicious; ominous; disgusting, filthy; offensive, repulsive; indecent, lewd, obscene”). The further etymology is uncertain, but may be from ob- (prefix meaning ‘towards’) + caenum (“dirt, filth; mire, mud”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweyn- (“to make dirty, soil; filth; mud”)) or scaevus (“left, on the left side; clumsy; (figurative) unlucky”) (from Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂iwo-). If from caenum, the unexpected extra -s- may be from a variant form of the original PIE root; a similar -s- exists in ex-.

Synonyms

adult bawdy blue cheeky dirty indecent filthy gross harlot impure ithyphallic lewd mucky naughty near the knuckle obscene off-colour racy raunchy ribald ribaudred ribaudrous risqué rorty salacious saucy shocking sluttish slutlike slutty smutty spicy tartish tarty trampy vulgar abandoned common easy fast lascivious liberal libidinous licentious loose lustful lusty promiscuous riggish slack unchaste wanton wappened abhorrant abhorrent bad bum vile demonic disagreeable

Antonyms

chaste decent moral nonobscene pure measured mellow middle of the road mild moderate nonexcessive nonextreme nonfanatic proper reasonable reasonous sober temperate tempered unexcessive unextreme

Related words

obscenity obscenous obscenousness

Derived words

nonobscene obscenely obsceneness obscenery obscenicon obscenist obscenometer unobscene
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on O Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary