Word.ws English Dictionary

lewd

/ljuːd/

lewd adjective: lascivious, sexually promiscuous, rude. Also the alternative form of lude.

Adjective

lewd (comparative lewder, superlative lewdest)

  1. Lascivious, sexually promiscuous, rude.
    • Onstage he was known for ricochet riffs on politics, social issues and cultural matters both high and low; tales of drug and alcohol abuse; lewd commentaries on relations between the sexes; and lightning-like improvisations on anything an audience member might toss at him.2014 August 11, Dave Itzkoff, “Robin Williams, Oscar-Winning Comedian, Dies at 63 in Suspected Suicide”, in New York Times
  2. (obsolete) Lay; not clerical.
    • So these great clerks their little wisdom show / To mock the lewd, as learn'd in this as they.1599, John Davies, Nosce Teipsum
  3. (obsolete) Uneducated.
    • My ſcoles are not for unthriftes untaught, / For frantick faitours half mad and half ſtraught; / But my learning is of another degree / To taunt theim like liddrons, lewde as thei bee.c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.
  4. (obsolete) Vulgar, common; typical of the lower orders.
    • But the Jews, which believed not, […] took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, […] and assaulted the house of Jason.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 17:5
    • Too lewd to work, and ready for any kind of mischief.1829, Robert Southey, Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society
  5. (obsolete) Base, vile, reprehensible.

Noun

lewd (plural lewds)

  1. A sexually suggestive image, particularly one which does not involve full nudity.
    • Nudes, lewds and smutty outhouse cards, although they can be bought in some of the rowdy joints, are a negligible percentage of the total, and are unobtainable in the chain stores, drugstores and travel stations which are the outlets for […]1944, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 217, page 25
    • […] also put it, he learned “the difference between nudes and lewds."1996, Cigar Aficionado, page 309

Verb

lewd (third-person singular simple present lewds, present participle lewding, simple past and past participle lewded)

  1. (ambitransitive, slang) To express lust; to behave in a lewd manner.
    • "Well then,” dropping her bathrobe, lewding her lips, “how 'bout some lovee?”2011, Cooper, The Queen's Assassin, page 189
    • Now, the men could just have been watching the unusual APC running on the road, or just lewding at the women.2016, George Saoulidis, The Girl Who Twisted Fate's Arm
  2. (slang, transitive) To sexualize a character, especially in a fan illustration.

Also used as

lewd is also the alternative form of lude.

lewd meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian

lewd in Tagalog

lascivious
malaswa

lewd in Arabic

lascivious
شَهْوَانِيّ šahwāniyy, شَبِق šabiq, غَلِم ḡalim

lewd in Indonesian

lascivious
cabul, kotor, sundal

lewd in Persian

lascivious
لچر lačar, هرزه harze
More languagesFewer languages
lewd in Thai
ลามก laa-mók

Examples of lewd in a sentence

  • Mildred comes home from work early only to discover her husband, Robert, midst of a lewd affair with their neighbor, Gladys.
  • Overhearing the lewd joke, the dowager gave a scandalized gasp.
  • The lewd lesson in question also included Michelangelo's Creation of Adam painting and Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

All 17 example sentences with lewd

Synonyms of lewd

Forms of lewd

Adjective
comparativelewder
superlativelewdest
Noun
plurallewds
Verb
third-person singular presentlewds
present participlelewding
past participlelewded
pastlewded

Origin of lewd

From Middle English lewed, lewd, leued (“unlearned, lay, lascivious”), from Old English lǣwede (“unlearned, ignorant, lay”), of uncertain origin. Formally similar to a derivative of the past participle of Old English lǣwan (“to reveal, betray”) in the sense of "exposed as being unlearned" or "easily betrayed, clueless", from Proto-West Germanic *lāwijan, from Proto-Germanic *lēwijaną (“to betray”), from *lēwą (“an opportunity, cause”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēw- (“to leave”). If so, then cognate with Old High German gilāen, firlāen (“to betray”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍅𐌾𐌰𐌽 (galēwjan, “to give over, betray”), Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐍅 (lēw, “an opportunity, cause”). Or, according to the OED, probably from Vulgar Latin *laigo-, from Late Latin lāicus (“of the people”), from Ancient Greek λαϊκός (laïkós).

Words formed from lewd

Words that rhyme with lewd

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lewd

What does lewd mean?
Lewd means lascivious, sexually promiscuous, rude.
What is lewd in Tagalog?
Lewd in Tagalog is malaswa. See Lewd meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is lewd?
Lewd can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce lewd?
Lewd is pronounced /ljuːd/.

Words near lewd in the dictionary

  1. Lewanna
  2. Lewarden
  3. Lewchew
  4. Lewchewan
  5. Lewchewans
  6. lewd
  7. lewdable
  8. lewded
  9. lewder
  10. lewdest
  11. lewding

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lewd (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-lewd.ogg.

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