risqué
Syllables: ris·quéUK/ˈɹɪskeɪ//ɹəˈskeɪ/
risqué adjective: slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.
Adjective
risqué (comparative more risqué, superlative most risqué)
- Slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.
- [S]he was angry with herself; and, for that, sang the more loudly the most wicked and risqué of her slang songs, that gave the morals of a Messalina in the language of a fish-wife, and yet had an inalienable, mischievous, contagious, dauntless French grace in it withal.1867, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “Cigarette en Bienfaitrice”, in Under Two Flags: A Story of the Household and the Desert. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 121
- Never blame society,—it buys books! Now if you could write a smart love-story, slightly risqué,—even a little more than risqué for that matter; that is the sort of thing that suits the present age.1895, Marie Corelli, chapter I, in The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 5
- Synonyms:
- raunchy, cheeky, suggestive, daring, naughty, near the knuckle, racy, rorty, saucy
- Antonyms:
- unrisqué
Examples of risqué in a sentence
- A woman of strong will, rough and risquée of speech, she declared herself appointed of God to achieve the great purpose of her time—the return of the Holy See to Rome.1927, Vicente Blasco Ibañez, “Two Women Scold a Pope”, in Arthur Livingston, transl., The Pope of the Sea: An Historical Medley, New York...
- "I figure I might as well be gay and risquée while I can," she says, with a little tremor in her boyish voice.1943 April 10, Dorothy Kilgallen, “The Magic Moniker”, in Collier’s, volume 111, number 15, Springfield, Oh.: The Crowell-Collier...
- Younger than Taret or Ani, she was more bold and risquée.2004, Page Bryant, “A Time for Amulet Making”, in The Second Coming of the Star Gods: A Visionary Novel, Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton...
- 'Good fashion is never risqué,' she says.2023, Kate J. Armstrong, “Jewel, Star, and Sea”, in Nightbirds, Crows Nest, Sydney, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, →ISBN:
Synonyms of risqué
Antonyms
Forms of risqué
| comparative | more risqué |
|---|---|
| superlative | most risqué |
| alternative form | risque |
| alternative form | risquée |
Origin of risqué
Borrowed from French risqué (“risky”), an adjective use of the past participle of risquer (“to put at risk; to risk”), from risque (“risk”, noun) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). Risque is derived from Old Italian risco (“risk”) (modern Italian rischio), possibly a deverbal from resecare or from Vulgar Latin *resecum, both from Latin resecō (“to cut loose or off, etc.”), from re- (intensifying prefix) + secō (“to cut; to cut off”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut; to cut off, sever”)).
Words formed from risqué
Words that rhyme with risqué
Questions about risqué
- What does risqué mean?
- Risqué means slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.
- How do you use risqué in a sentence?
- A woman of strong will, rough and risquée of speech, she declared herself appointed of God to achieve the great purpose of her time—the return of the Holy See to Rome.
- What part of speech is risqué?
- Risqué is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce risqué?
- Risqué is pronounced /ˈɹɪskeɪ/ (UK).
Words near risqué in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: risqué (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-us-risque.ogg.
Cite this entry: “risqué.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/risqu%C3%A9. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.