Etymology

From obscene +‎ -ityCategory:English terms suffixed with -ity#OBSCENITY, from LatinCategory:English terms derived from Latin#OBSCENITY obscenitasCategory:English undefined derivations#OBSCENITY.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#OBSCENITY

Noun

obscenity (countable and uncountable, plural obscenities)Category:English lemmas#OBSCENITYCategory:English nouns#OBSCENITYCategory:English uncountable nouns#OBSCENITYCategory:English countable nouns#OBSCENITYCategory:English countable nouns#OBSCENITYCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#OBSCENITYCategory:Pages with entries#OBSCENITYCategory:Pages with 1 entry#OBSCENITY

1. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#OBSCENITY) Something that is obscene.

   Martha wouldn't go into the art museum because, as she put it, "They have obscenities just sitting out, on display!"Category:English terms with usage examples#OBSCENITY

2. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#OBSCENITY) An act of obscene behaviour.

   Bestiality was outlawed as an obscenity in the strongly conservative community.Category:English terms with usage examples#OBSCENITY

3. (countableCategory:English countable nouns#OBSCENITY) Specifically, an offensive word; a profanity; a dirty word.

   Eliza couldn't stand her daughter's music; as she saw it, it was just shouted obscenities and a heavy drum beat.Category:English terms with usage examples#OBSCENITY

   • 2001, Dean R. Koontz, One Door Away from Heaven, Random House, →ISBN, page 497:

     Her mother favored a multiyear project: obscenities carved in intricate and clever juxtapositions, descending every finger, curling in lettered whorls across the palm, fanning in offensive rays across the opisthenar, which is the name for the back of the hand, a word that Leilani knew because she had studied the structure of the human hand in detail, the better to understand her difference.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OBSCENITY

4. (uncountableCategory:English uncountable nouns#OBSCENITY) Lewdness, indecency, or offensive behaviour or material.

   The coalition of religious conservatives was campaigning against, in their view, rampant obscenity in the entertainment industry.Category:English terms with usage examples#OBSCENITY

   • 2008 October 29, Margalit Fox, “Damiano, 80, directed 'Deep Throat'”, in The New York Times‎:

     Over three and a half decades, "Deep Throat" has been damned by religious groups, decried by feminists, defended by First Amendment advocates, derided by critics and debated by social scientists. It dragged for years through local and federal courts around the country in a welter of obscenity trials in which it was variously banned, unbanned and rebanned.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OBSCENITY

5. (uncountableCategory:English uncountable nouns#OBSCENITY) The fact of being obscene.
   • 1983 February 5, Shawn Towey, “Philly Women Convict Right”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 28, page 1:

     Henia Flint Goodman, a Holocaust survivor,spoke in outrage against the obscenity of anti-abortion literature which compares a woman's free choice to have an abortion with the crimes of the Nazi state.

     Category:English terms with quotations#OBSCENITY