obscene
pronunciation
How to pronounce obscene in British English:
UK [əbˈsiːn]
How to pronounce obscene in American English:
US [əbˈsiːn]
-
- Adjective:
- designed to incite to indecency or lust
- offensive to the mind
- suggestive of or tending to moral looseness
Word Origin
- obscene (adj.)
- 1590s, "offensive to the senses, or to taste and refinement," from Middle French obscène (16c.), from Latin obscenus "offensive," especially to modesty, originally "boding ill, inauspicious," of unknown origin; perhaps from ob "onto" (see ob-) + caenum "filth." Meaning "offensive to modesty or decency" is attested from 1590s. Legally, in U.S., it hinged on "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest." [Justice William Brennan, "Roth v. United States," June 24, 1957]; refined in 1973 by "Miller v. California": The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Related: Obscenely.
Antonym
Example
- 1. 1873 Congress passes the comstock law , defining contraceptive information as " obscene material . "
- 2. More calls followed with threatening and obscene messages .
- 3. Sotomayor : why isn 't that obscene in the sense that you 're using the word , or deviant ?
- 4. Some taunted her with obscene insults and threats .
- 5. Young arthur was horrified , she was hunchbacked and awfully hideous , had only one tooth , smelled like a sewer and often made obscene noises .