Word.ws English Dictionary

indecent liberty

indecent liberty noun: any behavior beyond the limits of propriety.

Noun

indecent liberty (plural indecent liberties)

  1. Any behavior beyond the limits of propriety.
    • The intention of this preface is not to persuade mankind to enter into our quarrels, but to vindicate the author from being censured for taking any indecent liberty with a faculty he has the honour to be a member of.c. 1700, Samuel Garth, preface to The Dispensary
    • It would, therefore, hardly be deemed an indecent liberty in the most private citizen, to offer his thoughts to the consideration of the Executive.1779, Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Patrick Henry, March 27, 1779
  2. Sexual behavior beyond social or legal limits.
    • ... pinching, tickling, rubbing up against, and other forms of contact in places such as elevators and grocery stores may constitute an indecent liberty.2004, Mark R. Laaser, Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction, page 41

Forms of indecent liberty

pluralindecent liberties

Questions about indecent liberty

What does indecent liberty mean?
Indecent liberty means any behavior beyond the limits of propriety.
What part of speech is indecent liberty?
Indecent liberty is a noun.
What is the plural of indecent liberty?
The plural of indecent liberty is indecent liberties.

Words near indecent liberty in the dictionary

  1. indecent assault
  2. indecent assaults
  3. indecent exposure
  4. indecent exposures
  5. indecent liberties
  6. indecent liberty
  7. indecenter
  8. indecentest
  9. indecently
  10. indecentness
  11. indecidability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: indecent liberty (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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