profanity
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English
Alternative forms
- prophanity (hypercorrect, obsolete)
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin profānitās. By surface analysis, profane + -ity.
Pronunciation
Audio (Southern England) (file)
Noun
profanity (countable and uncountable, plural profanities)
- (uncountable) The quality of being profane; quality of irreverence, of treating sacred things with contempt.
- 1910, John William Cousin, “Bunyan, John”, in A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature:
- The overwhelming power of his imagination led him to contemplate acts of impiety and profanity, and to a vivid realisation of the dangers these involved.
- (countable) Obscene, lewd or abusive language.
- He ran up and down the street screaming profanities like a madman.
- 2013 June 14, Sam Leith, “Where the profound meets the profane”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 37:
- Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths. Consider for a moment the origins of almost any word we have for bad language – "profanity", "curses", "oaths" and "swearing" itself.
Derived terms
Translations
quality of being profane
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obscene, lewd or abusive language
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