Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty.
- adj. Inciting lustful feelings; lewd.
- adj. Repulsive; disgusting: "The way he writes about the disease that killed her is simply obscene” ( Michael Korda).
- adj. So large in amount as to be objectionable or outrageous: "local merchants in nearby stores get hammered by stratospheric rents and obscene taxes” ( Joe Queenan).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Inauspicious; ill-omened.
- Offensive to the senses; repulsive; disgusting; foul; filthy.
- Offensive to modesty and decency; impure; unchaste; indecent: lewd: as, obscene actions or language; obscene pictures.
- Synonyms Immodest, ribald, gross.
Wiktionary
- adj. Offensive to current standards of decency or morality
- adj. Lewd or lustful
- adj. Disgusting or repulsive
- adj. Beyond all reason
- adj. Liable to deprave or corrupt
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing or presenting to the mind or view something which delicacy, purity, and decency forbid to be exposed; impure.
- adj. Foul; fifthy; disgusting.
- adj. Inauspicious; ill-omened.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. designed to incite to indecency or lust
- adj. suggestive of or tending to moral looseness
- adj. offensive to the mind
Etymologies
- Latin obscēnus.
Examples
“And just months later, a Chinese official accused the tech giant of spreading what he called obscene content via the Internet.”
“Obama also said his determination is heightened by reports of massive bank profits and what he called obscene bonuses.”
“In its final form, this criminal statute prohibited trafficking in "obscene" materials related to sex or reproduction, and forbade the "use of any drug, medicine, article, or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.”
'Trivial Complaints:' The Role of Privacy in Domestic Violence Law and Activism in the U.S.
“This carbon loophole has allowed pollution giants like Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Peabody Coal, and Massey Energy to ravage the planet, sicken our children, and rake in obscene profits for decades.”
“Karl Rove and his fellow GOP hatchetmen are raking in obscene amounts of undisclosed money, using it to lie to voters, all the while lying about the campaign finance fiasco that's allowing them to buy an election cycle.”
“Libyan Spider, one of the registered sellers of. ly domains, does state on its site that content must not contain "obscene and indecent names/phrases, including words of a sexual nature" and "sex" does seem to be a word of a sexual nature.”
The Washington Post: VB.ly, Bit.ly and Mitt.ly in danger? Oh real.ly? Trouble in .ly domain land.
“Especially Hasbro toys, which are mass produced in obscene numbers. clueless schmo”
“What is unacceptable is to see bank officers continuing to rake in obscene salaries after mismanaging the banks for a decade, the financial elite manipulating the corporate and bankruptcy laws to free themselves of debt while maintaining their extravagant lifestyles, and the clueless politicians wasting their time on trivial matters while the rest of us slowly bleed to death.”
The Huffington Post: Iris Erlingsdottir: Iceland Is Simmering
“I am positive that hundreds of blogs will be banned under the assumption that they contain obscene pictures.”
“A waterfall of bullets swept through the room, upending tables, riddling the walls, splattering glass and twisting people across the floor in obscene blood-splashing dances.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obscene’.
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Ends in ene
Words that, like my name, end in -ene. Excluding strictly chemical names.
aeschynomene, advene, abietene, achene, alberene, alcmene, ctene, scene, intervene, contravene, obscene, serene and 15 more...
thebighenry What was happening on-stage? May 10, 2008
dontcry That makes me wonder what the heck was going on off-stage! May 9, 2008
gangerh I heard on the radio today that this word is from Greek and simply meant off-stage. May 9, 2008
bilby "Women should be obscene and not heard."
- Groucho Marx. Dec 23, 2007