obscene

Meaning

Adj

1. Offensive to standards of decency or morality.
2. Lewd or lustful.
3. Disgusting or repulsive.
4. (broadly) Beyond all reason; excessive.
5. (British) Liable to corrupt or deprave.

Verb

To act or speak in an obscene manner; to offend.

Opposite of

decent, moral, nonobscene, chaste, pure, excessive

Synonyms

indecent

lewd

vulgar

dirty

filthy

immoral

improper

coarse

unchaste

salacious

bawdy

licentious

foul

immodest

shameful

lascivious

smutty

gross

disgusting

repulsive

repugnant

nasty

rude

detestable

abhorrent

execrable

lecherous

indecorous

scurrilous

sexy

raunchy

offensive

abominable

profligate

obnoxious

racy

horrible

gamy

gamey

degenerate

frivolous

dark

loathly

libertarian

common

beastly

lewdly

erotic

lecherously

dreadful

Translations

obszön

obscène

osceno

obsceno

obsceno

obscè

obsceen

unanständig

schunnig

αισχρός

schuin

indecente

Pronounced as (IPA)

/əbˈsiːn/

Etymology

Cognate with French: obscène

In summary

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 so, the unexpected extra -s- may be from a variant form of the original PIE root; a similar -s- exists in ex-.