Word.ws English Dictionary

four-letter words

four-letter words is the plural of four-letter word.

Meaning of four-letter word

Noun

four-letter word (plural four-letter words)

  1. A reference to any of several of the strongest English swear words that are also four letters long, especially those composing the so-called seven dirty words.
    • Good authors, too, who once knew better words / Now only use four-letter words1934, Cole Porter, “Anything Goes”, in Anything Goes
  2. (broadly) A swear word or any words considered to be taboo in a given scenario (regardless of length of word).
    • People say that you were born lazy / because you think that work is four-letter word1968, “Work Is a Four-Letter Word”, performed by Cilla Black

Questions about four-letter words

What is four-letter words the plural of?
Four-letter words is the plural of four-letter word.

Words near four-letter words in the dictionary

  1. four-legged friends
  2. four-leggeds
  3. four-letter
  4. four-letter man
  5. four-letter word
  6. four-letter words
  7. four-lined wave
  8. four-lined waves
  9. four-master
  10. four-masters
  11. four-minute warning

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: four-letter words (page history and authors); four-letter word (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “four-letter words.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/four-letter_words. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.