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obscene

adj
/əbˈsiːn/UK/əbˈsin/US

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-.

  1. derived from *ḱweyn-✻ — “to make dirty, soil; filth; mud”
  2. derived from obscēnus
  3. derived from obscene

Definitions

  1. Offensive to standards of decency or morality.

    • Neither do wee pleaſe them with their owne crimes, or obſcæne ſpectacles: whereas they celebrate both the guilt that there gods incurred who were men, and the fayned pleaſures of ſuch of them as were flat deuills.
    • Shall I recount his intemperance, voluptuouſneſs, and obſcæne manner of living? or his impious, doubtful or wicked end? no, let them be buried with his aſhes.

  2. Lewd or lustful.

    • Playes are the nurseries of vice, the bawd, / That thorow the senses steales our hearts abroad, / Tainting our eares with obscæne bawdery, / Lascivious words, and wanton ribaulry.
    • All masturbation is obscene, for [Roger] Scruton, also because it "involves a concentration on the body and its curious pleasures" [...].
    • Obscene phone calling is usually considered a nuisance to the women receiving such calls from a man who makes obscene suggestions or describes his masturbation over the telephone.

  3. Disgusting or repulsive.

    • The reminder of who we were / made the canned laughter obscene. / Disgusted, mother returned to the kitchen, / her thoughts private.
    • Her mom made her break up with me when she found a note I wrote to Linda; she found it obscene. I found HER obscene.
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. Beyond all reason

      Beyond all reason; excessive.

      • "You ate an obscene amount of those lobster patties last night, Deb." / "And I plan to eat an obscene amount of them tonight as well," I replied.
      • She would probably jump at the chance to show everyone how to save an obscene amount of money with an obscene amount of coupons.

    2. Liable to corrupt or deprave.

      • The tract was far more political and religious than sexual, but Cockburn [Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet] found it obscene because it would suggest to young persons (of either sex) "impure and libidinous" thoughts.

    3. To act or speak in an obscene manner

      To act or speak in an obscene manner; to offend.

      • They passed the little stenchy cubicles shared by two families to a floor, and the graffiti gratuitously graven onto the walls, obscening the world and telling it, them, those, the fuzz, and everyone to go and . . .
      • “Fucked up, is what they are,” the priest obscened. “Pardon my language, but this is par for the course of the Catholic Church. What kind of bullshit is this?”

The neighborhood

Derived

nonobscene, obscenely, obsceneness, obscenery, obscenicon, obscenist, obscenometer, unobscene

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at obscene. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01obscene02standards03conduct04directing05direct06straightforward07course08lowest09low10vulgar

A definitional loop anchored at obscene. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at obscene

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA