obscene

Syllables: ob·sceneUK/əbˈsiːn//əbˈsin/

obscene adjective: offensive to standards of decency or morality.

Adjective

obscene (comparative obscener or more obscene, superlative obscenest or most obscene)

Offensive to standards of decency or morality.
- [...] I did incounter that obſeene and moſt prepoſterous euent that draweth frõ my ſnowhite pen the ebon coloured Incke, which here thou vieweſt, beholdeſt, ſuruayeſt, or ſeeſt. [...] There did I ſee that low ſpirited Swaine, [...] hight Coſtard, (Clow[ne]. O mee) ſorted and conſorted contrary to...c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby...
- Neither do wee pleaſe them with their owne crimes, or obſcæne ſpectacles: whereas they celebrate both the guilt that there gods incurred who were men, and the fayned pleaſures of ſuch of them as were flat deuills.1610, S[ain]t Augustine, “Of the Honor that Christians Giue to the Martires”, in J[ohn] H[ealey], transl., St. Augustine, of the Citie of God: […], [London]: […] George Eld, →OCLC, page 336
Antonyms:

decent, moral, nonobscene
Lewd or lustful.
- Playes are the nurseries of vice, the bawd, / That thorow the senses steales our hearts abroad, / Tainting our eares with obscæne bawdery, / Lascivious words, and wanton ribaulry.1629, Fra[ncis] Lenton, “Section XIV. The Young Gallant’s Whirlgig.”, in James Orchard Halliwell, editor, The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, an Ancient Interlude. […], London: […] Shakespeare Society...
- All masturbation is obscene, for [Roger] Scruton, also because it "involves a concentration on the body and its curious pleasures" [...].1996, Alan Soble, “Masturbation”, in Sexual Investigations, New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 104
Synonyms:

abandoned, common, easy, fast, lascivious, lewd, liberal, libidinous, licentious, loose

Antonyms:

chaste, nonobscene, pure
Disgusting or repulsive.
- Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Four. The Last of the Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 135
- The reminder of who we were / made the canned laughter obscene. / Disgusted, mother returned to the kitchen, / her thoughts private.2002 October, Susanne Heinz, Deborah Miller, “Hogan’s Heroes”, in Grandmother’s Radio: Echoes from the Holocaust, Calgary, Alta.: Bayeux Arts, →ISBN, page 66
Synonyms:

abhorrant, abhorrent, bad, sickly, mean, infernal, bum, horrid, vile, demonic

Antonyms:

nonobscene
(broadly) Beyond all reason; excessive.
- Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo...1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 425
- "You ate an obscene amount of those lobster patties last night, Deb." / "And I plan to eat an obscene amount of them tonight as well," I replied.1999, Joan Wolf, chapter 4, in The Pretenders, [San Francisco, Calif.]: Untreed Reads, published 2020, →ISBN
Synonyms:

devilish, excessive, horrendous, de trop, extravagant, extreme, immoderate, intemperate, lavish, nimious

Antonyms:

measured, mellow, middle of the road, mild, moderate, nonexcessive, nonextreme, nonfanatic, proper, reasonable
(UK, criminal law) Liable to corrupt or deprave.
- For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant...1959 August 29, Obscene Publications Act 1959 (7 & 8 Eliz. II, chapter 66), London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Aug 2020, section 1(1)
- The tract was far more political and religious than sexual, but Cockburn [Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet] found it obscene because it would suggest to young persons (of either sex) "impure and libidinous" thoughts.2006, Philip A. Dynia, “Obscenity”, in Paul Finkelman, editor, Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, volumes 2 (G–Q), New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1116, column 1
Synonyms:

corruptive, perversive

Antonyms:

decent, nonobscene

Verb

obscene (third-person singular simple present obscenes, present participle obscening, simple past and past participle obscened)

(ambitransitive, rare) To act or speak in an obscene manner; to offend.
- They passed the little stenchy cubicles shared by two families to a floor, and the graffiti gratuitously graven onto the walls, obscening the world and telling it, them, those, the fuzz, and everyone to go and . . .1960 October, Sol Yurick, “The Annealing”, in The Noble Savage, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Meridian Books, Inc., →LCCN, page 111
- That always came as a final apotheosis, showing Phil deep in hell, growling through Greek fire and blue smoke – that is to say, locked upstairs in the bathroom, obscening at her as he never in his life obscened at anybody in public, strangling her with his two fists, shoving her head down into the...1970, Sean O’Faolain, “Hymeneal”, in The Talking Trees and Other Stories, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →LCCN, page 49

obscene meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

obscene in Hindi

offensive to current standards of decency or morality: फ़हश fahaś, अश्लील aślīl

obscene in Urdu

obscene, immoral: نازیبا nāzebā
obscene, indecent: گندہ ganda
obscene: مردار murdār

obscene in Bengali

অশ্লীল, কুরুচিপূর্ণ, ঘৃণ্য

More languagesFewer languages

obscene in Telugu: అశ్లీలంగా
obscene in Malayalam: അശ്ലീലം aślīlaṁ, ആഭാസം ābhāsaṁ
obscene in Kannada: ಕೊಳಕು koḷaku
obscene in Gujarati: અશ્લીલ
obscene in Odia: ଅଶ୍ଳୀଳ, ଅଶ୍ଳୀଳ |
obscene in Tagalog: maruming-isip
obscene in Arabic: فَاحِش fāḥiš, قَذِر qaḏir, فَحَّاش faḥḥāš
obscene in Indonesian: asusila, cabul, kasar, jorok
obscene in Persian: فاحش fâheš, فحاش fahhâš, مستهجن mostahjan

Examples of obscene in a sentence

What is obscene today may not be so tomorrow or what is obscene at one place may not be obscene at another place.1990, Inder S. Rana, Law of Obscenity in India, USA & UK, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, →ISBN, page 109:
The chapter closes with some thoughts on the obscene consumer from both a postmodern, and especially a modern, perspective.2001, George Ritzer, Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption: Fast Food, Credit Cards and Casinos, London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE...
However, the new is not radical or provocative or obscene a priori.2009, Ingrid Loschek, “When is Creativity?”, in Lucinda Rennison, transl., When Clothes become Fashion: Design and Innovation Systems...
Obscene phone calling is usually considered a nuisance to the women receiving such calls from a man who makes obscene suggestions or describes his masturbation over the telephone.2004 August 25, Victor T. Cheney, “Other Sex-related Problems”, in The Sex Offenses and their Treatments: The Problem—The...

All 40 example sentences with obscene

Synonyms of obscene

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of obscene

Forms of obscene

Adjective
comparative	obscener
comparative	more obscene
superlative	obscenest
superlative	most obscene
alternative form (archaic)	obscæne
Verb
third-person singular present	obscenes
present participle	obscening
past participle	obscened
past	obscened

Origin of obscene

From Middle French obscene (modern French obscène (“indecent, obscene”)), and from its etymon Latin obscēnus, obscaenus (“inauspicious; ominous; disgusting, filthy; offensive, repulsive; indecent, lewd, obscene”). The further etymology is uncertain, but may be from ob- (prefix meaning ‘towards’) + caenum (“dirt, filth; mire, mud”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweyn- (“to make dirty, soil; filth; mud”)) or scaevus (“left, on the left side; clumsy; (figurative) unlucky”) (from Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂iwo-). If from caenum, the unexpected extra -s- may be from a variant form of the original PIE root; a similar -s- exists in ex-.

Words formed from obscene

Words that rhyme with obscene

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about obscene

What does obscene mean?: Obscene means offensive to standards of decency or morality.
What is obscene in Hindi?: Obscene in Hindi is फ़हश (fahaś), अश्लील (aślīl). See Obscene meaning in Hindi.
How do you use obscene in a sentence?: What is obscene today may not be so tomorrow or what is obscene at one place may not be obscene at another place.
What part of speech is obscene?: Obscene can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce obscene?: Obscene is pronounced /əbˈsiːn/ (UK).

Words near obscene in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: obscene (page history and authors); obscene (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); مردار (Urdu) (page history and authors); obscene (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obscene (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); അശ്ലീലം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಕೊಳಕು (Kannada) (page history and authors); obscene (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); obscene (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-obscene.ogg.

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