lascivious

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin lascīviōsus,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a word used by Isidore and other early Church writers,^[2][7] perhaps by way of Middle French lascivieux.^[8][9] It comes from Latin lascīvia (“wantonness, playfulness, lewdness”), from lascīvus (“playful, unrestrained, lustful”).^{[2][10][7][3]} Merriam-Webster instead takes the English word as the Latin noun with -ous.^[11] Etymonline and de Vaan trace the Latin adjective to Proto-Indo-European *las-ko-, from *las- (“to desire”),^[7][10][12] whose other descendants include Old Irish lainn (“eager, greedy”),^[12][4] Ancient Greek λιλαίομαι (lilaíomai, “to desire strongly”),^[12][4] Hittite ilaliya- (“to desire, covet”),^[4][7] Gothic 𐌻𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌿𐍃 (lustus)^[4][7] and Old English lust.^[4][7] Ayto says only that the relation with lust is possible.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lustful, inclined to lust: c. 1425 in the OED, from Lydgate's Assembly of Gods,^[2] a poem the MED dates c. 1500, perhaps before 1475, where its first quotation is De Claris Mulieribus, c. 1450, warning virgins against "lascyuyous and wanton ȝonge personys".^[14] Barnhart gives about 1450, and Etymonline the mid-15th century.^[9][7]

Semantic evolution

The Latin adjective lascīvus covered playfulness and frolic as well as lewdness, but Isidore and other Church writers used the derived form in a scolding sense,^[7] and English has had the sexual sense from the start.^[2][14] From the 1580s the word could describe what excites desire rather than the person who feels it: Puttenham has it in 1589.^[2][7] In a milder use, now obsolete, it meant simply pleasing to the senses, and Johnson (1755) gave "wanton; soft; luxurious" as a second sense, quoting the "lascivious pleasing of a lute" from Shakespeare's Richard III.^[2][15][3] In 1698 John Fryer applied it to rank, luxuriant vegetation.^[2] The verb lasciviate, to play the wanton, existed in the 17th century and is now obsolete.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – feeling or showing strong sexual desire; lustful.^[2]
• mid-16th century – the derivatives lasciviously and lasciviousness.^[3]
• 1589 – arousing sexual desire; also, in a milder sense now obsolete, pleasing to the senses.^[2][7]
• 1698 – of vegetation, growing rankly or luxuriantly.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Feeling or showing strong sexual desire; lewd, lustful: He disliked the lascivious jokes told at the bar.^[11][16][2]
2. Tending to arouse sexual desire: a lascivious dance.^[11][16][3]
3. Of plants, growing vigorously or rank.^[2]
4. Pleasing to the senses; voluptuous or luxurious (obsolete).^[2][15][3]

Word family

• lasciviously
• lasciviousness
• overlascivious

Related words

• lust
• list

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins