obscenity

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French obscenité, now obscénité, recorded from 1511 for obscene words or actions,^[2][3][4][5] or directly borrowed from Latin obscēnitās (“indecency, lewd behaviour”), also spelled obscaenitās;^[2][6][7] the OED leaves the choice open.^[2] The Latin noun is formed from obscēnus (“ill-omened, filthy, indecent”), the source of obscene, with the suffix -tās;^[2][3][5] Etymonline and Klein gloss the noun "inauspiciousness, filthiness".^[3][4] The adjective is made with ob- and a second element of uncertain origin, associated with scaevus (“left-sided, inauspicious”) and with caenum (“mud, filth”).^[2] Varro's derivation from scaena (“stage”) is probably a folk etymology.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The quality of being offensively indecent, lewdness: 1589, in Thomas Nashe's Anatomie of Absurditie.^[2][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1580s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense covered lewdness in action, words or pictures alike.^[3][2] From the 1610s (before 1618 in Joshua Sylvester, in the OED) the word was also used more widely of anything foul, horrible or morally repugnant,^[2][3] and the Shorter Oxford illustrates it with gang violence.^[6] The countable sense, an obscene word or utterance, is attested by 1690^[3] and is now chiefly plural.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "impurity of thought or language; unchastity; lewdness".^[8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged labels the old sense "filthiness, foulness" archaic.^[5]

Timeline

• 1589 – the quality of being indecent, lewdness.^[2][5]
• before 1618 – the quality of being horrible or morally offensive; a repugnant thing.^[2][3]
• 1690 – an obscene word or utterance.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state or quality of being obscene; indecency or lewdness: The publisher was charged with obscenity.^[9][5][2]
2. An obscene word, act or expression, usually in the plural: He shouted obscenities at the referee.^[9][5][2]
3. Something morally repugnant or deeply offensive: the obscenity of the arms trade.^[2][6]
4. (archaic) Filthiness, foulness.^[5][6]

Word family

• antiobscenity

Related words

• obscene

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 g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins