Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Ignorant; unlearned; illiterate.
- Lay, as opposed to clerical.
- Rude; homely; uncultivated.
- Worthless; useless.
- Bad; vile; vicious; wicked.
- Lustful; wanton; lascivious; libidinous.
- Synonyms See list under lascivious.
Wiktionary
- adj. Lascivious, sexually promiscuous, rude.
- adj. obsolete Lay; not clerical.
- adj. obsolete Uneducated.
- adj. obsolete Vulgar, common; typical of the lower orders.
- adj. obsolete Base, vile, reprehensible.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Not clerical; laic; laical; hence, unlearned; simple.
- adj. Archaic Belonging to the lower classes, or the rabble; idle and lawless; bad; vicious.
- adj. Given to the promiscuous indulgence of lust; dissolute; lustful; libidinous.
- adj. Suiting, or proceeding from, lustfulness; involving unlawful sexual desire.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. driven by lust; preoccupied with or exhibiting lustful desires
- adj. suggestive of or tending to moral looseness
Etymologies
- From Middle English leud, leued, lewed ("unlearned, lay, lascivious"), from Old English lǣwede ("unlearned, ignorant, lay"), of obscure origin; most likely a derivative of the past participle of lǣwan ("to reveal, betray") in the sense of "exposed as being unlearned" or "easily betrayed, clueless", from Proto-Germanic *lēwijanan (“to betray”), from Proto-Germanic *lēwan (“an opportunity, cause”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēw- (“to leave”). Cognate with Old High German gilāen, firlāen ("to betray"), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍅𐌾𐌰𐌽 (galēwjan, "to give over, betray"), Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐍅, 𐌻𐌴𐍅𐌰 (lēw, lēwa, "an opportunity, cause"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English leued, unlearned, lay, lascivious, from Old English lǣwede, ignorant, lay. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word lewd has appeared in 109 New York Times articles in the past year, including on July 29 in "Faces Still Alive, Centuries Later," by Roberta Smith:”
“Though it should be noted that neither of those votes is directly at odds with engaging in lewd conduct in a public men's rest room.”
“Though it should be noted that neither of those votes is directly at odds with engaging in lewd conduct in a public men's rest room.”
“Craig then entered the stall next to Karsniaâs and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door. âMy experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall, â Karsnia stated in his report. âFrom my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me. â”
“I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.”
“Ever notice how many of the female rock and pop stars, even though they are dressed in lewd neo-corsets and other underwear and skimpy things, still manage NOT to look sexy?”
Modest Feminine Dress From the Pages of 1990 Victoria Magazine
“Although exonerated as not guilty by the law, the scandal of a teacher with a student destroyed her reputation as she is hung as a femme fatale by the public especially condemning her are the altered pictures on the Internet that showed them together in lewd poses.”
Triple Exposure-Colleen Thompson « The Merry Genre Go Round Reviews
“I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," Roll Call wrote, quoting the investigator in the police incident report.”
“Then he died and certain lewd fellows of the Children of Israel heard of the charge he had laid on his son and began coming to the latter and saying, “Thy father had such and such monies of mine, and thou knowest it; so give me what was entrusted to him or else make oath that there was no trust.””
“So, if this woman would not consent to replace her dead husband with a Sultan, how shall she be compared with one who replaced her husband, whilst he was yet alive, with a youth of unknown extraction and condition, and especially when this was in lewd carriage and not by way of lawful marriage?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lewd’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1078 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 50 more...
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gre words
convoluted, deride, melancholy, antagonize, antagonize, deference, portentous, prodigious, ruminate, ineffable, turgid, mossy and 58 more...
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ravyn's randy words
Words that are as fun to say as do!
amorous, impassioned, infatuated, enamored, desirous, vehement, ecstasy, frenzy, sentiment, relations, coition, audacious and 16 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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wajo22's list
signation, genuflection, precosmic, pretemporal, precreative, pre-hexameral, preplanetary, pre-terrestrial, antemundane,
antemundane, signation, genuflection, precosmic, pretemporal, precreative, pre-hexameral, preplanetary, keeperess, trichotillomania, deerstalker, danseur and 99 more...
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135 Offensive Shakespearean Terms
135 Offensive Shakespearean Terms =)
artless, baggage, barnacle, bawdy, beef-witted, bladder, boil-brained, bootless, brazen, cankerblossom, churlish, churrish and 123 more...
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The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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Really Cool Four-Letter Words
I marvel at the amazing variety of four-letter words in the English language. And that's not even counting really common (to me) words like fuck.
ibis, pelf, sofa, iota, oboe, lava, icon, sped, puha, pulp, puma, kyat and 150 more...
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kalidas's Words
crepuscular, mellifluous, ephemeral, diaphanous, zeitgeist, geisterfahrer, infinite, eternal, idyllic, azure, reminiscent, oblivion and 521 more...
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I do not like them, Sam I Am
Words that, for various reasons, I wish we could do without.
copacetic, gamut, horehound, lewd, membrane, metrics, mucous, mucus, negligee, nostril, odious, odor and 143 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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minneapolitan's Words
hissyfit, fussbudget, aghast, lament, trichinellosis, tranche, decadent, aspersion, pejorative, aniline, galoshes, accede and 200 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lewd.
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