Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Profanity |
ProfanityNoun1. Vulgar or irreverent speech or action. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "profanity" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
Etymology: Profanity \Pro*fan"i*ty\, noun. [Latin expression profanitas.]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of profanity, denotes that you will cultivate those traits which render you coarse and unfeeling toward your fellow man. To dream that others use profanity, is a sign that you will be injured in some way, and probably insulted also. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Profanity is a word choice or usage which many consider to be offensive. The original meaning of the term was restricted to blasphemy, sacrilege or taking God's name in vain (profane speech), especially expressions such as "God damn it", "go to Hell", and "damn you". The word bloody may belong in this category.
However, the meaning has been extended to include scatological or sexual terms (in English, primarily shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cock, dick, tits, fart, turd, twat, faggot, and, frequently, bitch and bastard). The list includes words that are merely vulgar as well as those thought obscene. Compare the concept of the four-letter word.
There has always been great difficulty in defining profanity. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, in response to complaints about a 1973 broadcast comedy routine by George Carlin called Seven words you can never say on television, ruled that such language could not be broadcast "at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience." The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this act of censorship in 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The words occurring in Carlin's monologue were: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. Carlin's routine using these words has since been broadcast, however. In the early 1960s, Lenny Bruce had been taken to court for using some of these same words in his own comedy routines.
Terms of profanity have historically been taboo words.
Some words originally considered profane have become much less offensive with the increasing secularity of society, while others, primarily racial or ethnic epithets which can be considered part of hate speech, have become increasingly taboo.
The word cunt maintains much of its taboo status at least partly due to the influence of feminism, though other feminists are attempting to "reclaim" a neutral or complimentary status for this word. Shakespeare hinted at the word in Henry V and Hamlet: Hamlet and Ophelia quip about "country matters" when he tries to lay his head in her lap; and the French Princess Katherine is amused by the word gown for its similarity to the French for cunt, coun.
Many people today consider the word nigger much more offensive than sexual or scatalogical terms. (Although it depends on the context in which it is used -- people of African descent sometimes use the term among themselves, typically dropping the r and ending on the vowel: nigga.) This sensitivity to the word nigger has even extended to the point of attempting to ban the use of the word niggardly (meaning "stingy"), which many mistakenly believe to be related to the word nigger.
Psycholinguistic studies have demonstrated that profanity and other taboo words produce physical effects in people who read or hear them, such as an elevated heart rate.
This fact is seen by some as evidence that reclaiming of words such as queer is a valid way to remove its power. See also the article on nigger, as well as Drum and Bass for the reclaiming of the word jungle.
The situation is rendered more complex when other languages enter the picture. In European Spanish, coño (usually translated as "cunt" in English) is very common in informal spoken discourse, meaning no more than "Hey!" or "Christ!". Likewise, in French, merde as well as Scheiße in German (both usually translated as "shit") are also quite common as an expletive meaning little more than "Damn!". It is also interesting to note that while German and other languages' profanity seems to focus on precipitation, English seems to have an issue with sexuality in this respect.
Some scholars have noted that while the French and Spanish are comfortable hearing native speakers use these words, they tend to hear the "stronger" meaning when the same words are spoken by non-native speakers. This may be similar to the differences in the acceptability of queer or nigger depending on who is saying the words. Or it may be an example of how it is easier to learn swear words in a new language or dialect than to learn the fine shades of intensity which accompany their use.
A profane word in one language often sounds like an ordinary word in another. Fuck sounds like the French words for seal (phoque) and jib (foc), as well as the Romania word for 'do' (I do = eu fac); shit sounds like the Russian for "sewn". Even names in one language may appear as vulgar words in another linguistic community, which causes many immigrants to change their names (common Vietnamese personal names include Phuc and Bich). A particular coincidence is the Hungarian and Spanish words for "curve": Spanish curva sounds like a Slavic and Hungarian kurva meaning "prostitute", and Hungarian kanyar sounds like coño, mentioned above. In Romanian "curva" means "prostitute". See another example in Laputa . Additionally, "puta" is genitive and accusative case of two often used words in south Slavic languages.
Quebecois French can string a few basic terms from Roman Catholic liturgy into quite impressive strings of invective of up to a minute or more. This is known as sacre.
Profanity took a very interesting form in Russia where there exists a language of sorts, most of its words based on four basic profane roots - nouns penis, whore, cunt and verb fuck. At least two hundred derivative words exist in this language, plus countless word combinations. It is possible to sensibly communicate using just these four basic roots. Due to countless very fine nuances (stress on a different syllable changes the meaning of certain words etc.) it is not easy to master that language which is very widely used in Russia, especially in rural areas. Before the 1990s these words never appeared in print (except special articles published in universities) and they remain officially banned on TV and in the movies.
A computer programming language called f*ckf*ck has been devised using the same idea. See [1]
Definition
History
Interlanguage
Russia
Computers
External links and references
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Profanity."
Synonym: ProfanitySynonym: Swearing. (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Impiety | Noun: impiety; sin; irreverence; profaneness; Adjective: profanity, profanation; blasphemy, desecration, sacrilege; scoffing;Verb: |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Profanity |
| English words defined with "profanity": blasphemous, blue ♦ profane ♦ stereotyped, stereotypic, stereotypical, swearer ♦ unimaginative. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "profanity": Friar John ♦ Greenlandman's Galley ♦ Horse Feathers ♦ STOVE-PIPE. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | My father wove a tapestry of profanity which to this day is still hovering somewhere over Lake Michigan. (A Christmas Story; writing credit: Leigh Brown; Bob Clark) | |
Clever | Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. (references; author: Mark Twain) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | I won't listen in silence to the profanity of that old heathen. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Hosea Ballou | Most people who commit a sin count on some personal benefit therefrom, but profanity has not even this excuse. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Malaysia | A government censorship board censors films for profanity, nudity, sex, violence, and certain political and religious content. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Profanity" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Profanity" is used about 22 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 22 | 74,468 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
profanity | 44 |
profanity filter | 20 |
profanity spanish | 7 |
dictionary profanity | 6 |
list profanity | 5 |
in profanity workplace | 4 |
history profanity | 4 |
german profanity | 3 |
french profanity | 3 |
law profanity | 3 |
arabic profanity | 2 |
italian profanity | 2 |
profanity work | 2 |
japanese profanity | 2 |
in movie profanity | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "profanity"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | karakter laik, blasfemi (blasphemy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | تجديف (oath, profanation, rowing, stroke), تدنيسية, عدم تقوى (impiety), دنس (defile, desecrate, grubby, impure, ordure, pollute, pollution, profane, scum, soil, sullying, violate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | ругатни (abuse, abusive language, bluster, bugaboo, invectives, obloquy, vernacular), богохулство (blasphemy, oath, swear), псувни (invectives). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 亵渎 (Blasphemy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | rouhavost, neuctivost. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | ناسزا (Swear, Swearword), کفرگوءی (Swearword), کفر (Atheism, Blasphemy, Heresy, Infidelity), بی حرمتی بمقدسات . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | nature profane, juron, impiété, caractère profane. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Weltlichkeit (mundaneness, secularism, secularness, worldliness). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | βλασφημία (blasphemy, curse, cuss, swearing), ασέβεια (disregard for, godlessness, impiety, irreligion, irreverence, unholiness). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | חלול "קו"ש (desecration of sanctity, sacrilege), '"וף (abuse, blasphemy, curse, insult, invective, obloquy, revilement, scorn, swearword, vilification, vituperation), אוץ (abuse, blasphemy, cursing, execration, reviling), בול פ" (bawdiness, bawdry, obscenity, ribaldry, scurrility, smut). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | szentségtörés (sacrilege), profanitás. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | profanit , irriverenza (disrespect, irreverence). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | '涜 (blasphemy, curse, desecration, sacrilege), 'とく (blasphemy, curse, desecration, sacrilege), 不敬 (blasphemy, disrespect, impiety, irreverence). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ぼうとく (blasphemy, curse, desecration, sacrilege), ふけい (agnate, blasphemy, castration, disrespect, guardians, impiety, irreverence, parents and older brothers, policewoman, prefectural police). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | seihlltys, seihlltaght (materialism, worldliness, worldly-mindedness), anchasherickys (impiety, profanation). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ofanitypray profanidade, profanação (defilement, desecration, pollution, profanation, violation), sacrilégio (blasphemy, sacrilege), irreverência (flippancy, irreverence), impiedade (impiety), caráter profano, blasfêmia (blasphemy, curse, swearing). (various references) богохульство (blasphemy, oath), профанация (profanation). (various references) profanost, vulgarnost (vulgarity). (various references) palabrota (curse, oath, profane word, swearword), impiedad (impiety), carácter profano, blasfemia (blasphemy, oath). (various references) världslighet (secularism, secularity), hädelser. (various references) kutsal şeye saygısızlık (desecration, profanation, sacrilege), kaba konuşma (unparliamentary language, vulgar expression), küfür (a bad word, abuse, blasphemy, contumely, curse, cuss, cuss word, expletive, invective, invectives, oath, revilement, scurrility, strong language, swearing, swearword), ağzı bozukluk (filth, scurrility). (various references) богохульство (oath, sacrilege, swear), профанація (defilement, desecration, profanation). (various references) tính báng bổ lời nói báng bổ; h nh động báng bổ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Profanity" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: predacity, profain, profainity, profamily, profant, profanty, profinity, profunity. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "profanity" (pronounced prōfa"nutē) |
| 5 | -a" n u t ē | humanity, inhumanity, insanity, sanity, vanity. |
| 4 | -n u t ē | affinity, alkalinity, amenity, community, dignity, disunity, divinity, eternity, femininity, fraternity, immunity, impunity, indemnity, indignity, infinity, masculinity, maternity, modernity, obscenity, opportunity, paternity, salinity, serenity, solemnity, Trinity, unity, vicinity, virginity. |
| 3 | -u t ē | ability, abnormality, absurdity, acceptability, accessibility, accountability, acidity, activity, actuality, acuity, adaptability, admissibility, adversity, advisability, affordability, aggressivity, agility, alacrity, ambiguity, amiability, amity, analyticity, animosity, annuity, anonymity, antiquity, anxiety, applicability, atrocity, audacity, austerity, authenticity, authority, availability, banality, barbarity, believability, bestiality, biodiversity, bisexuality, brevity, brutality, calamity, capability, capacity, captivity, causality, cavity, celebrity, centrality, charity, chastity, civility, clarity, collegiality, commodity, commonality, comparability, compatibility, complexity, complicity, comprehensibility, conditionality, conductivity, confidentiality, conformity, congeniality, congruity, connectivity, constitutionality, continuity, convertibility, creativity, credibility, credulity, criminality, criticality, crotchety, culpability, curiosity, cyclicality, debility, deductibility, deformity, deity, deniability, density, dependability, depravity, deputy, desirability, dexterity, dimensionality, disability, discontinuity, disparity, dissimilarity, diversity, docility, domesticity, duality, ductility, duplicity, durability, eccentricity, elasticity, electability, electricity, eligibility, enforceability, enmity, enormity, entity, equality, equanimity, equity, ethnicity, eventuality, exclusivity, expressivity, extraterritoriality, extremity, facility, fallibility, falsity, familiarity, fatality, feasibility, Felicity, ferocity, fertility, festivity, fidelity, finality, flammability, flexibility, fluidity, formality, fragility, frivolity, frugality, functionality, futility, generality, generosity, geniality, gentility, gratuity, gravity, gullibility, heredity, heterogeneity, heterosexuality, hilarity, homogeneity, homosexuality, hospitality, hostility, humidity, humility, hyperactivity, hypersensitivity, identity, illegality, illiquidity, immaturity, immobility, immorality, immortality, impartiality, impersonality, impossibility, impropriety, impurity, inability, inaccessibility, inactivity, incapacity, incivility, incompatibility, incongruity, incredulity, indestructibility, individuality, inequality, inequity, inevitability, infallibility, inferiority, infertility, infidelity, infirmity, inflexibility, informality, ingenuity, insecurity, insensitivity, instability, instrumentality, insularity, integrity, intensity, invincibility, invisibility, invulnerability, irrationality, irregularity, irresponsibility, irritability, laity, laxity, legality, legibility, lethality, levity, liability, liberality, liquidity, lividity, locality, longevity, majority, malleability, maneuverability, marketability, materiality, maturity, mediocrity, mendacity, mentality, minority, miscibility, mobility, modality, monstrosity, morality, morbidity, mortality, motility, multiplicity, municipality, musicality, mutuality, nationality, nativity, necessity, negativity, neutrality, nobility, Nonconformity, nonentity, nonutility, normality, notoriety, nudity, obesity, objectivity, obscurity, oddity, opacity, originality, overcapacity, oversensitivity, palatability, parity, partiality, particularity, passivity, paucity, peculiarity, permeability, perpetuity, perplexity, personality, perversity, piety, plausibility, plurality, polarity, polity, pomposity, popularity, portability, possibility, posterity, practicality, predictability, principality, priority, probability, probity, proclivity, productivity, profitability, progressivity, promiscuity, propensity, proportionality, propriety, prosperity, proximity, publicity, punctuality, purity, quality, quantity, radioactivity, rapidity, rarity, rationality, reactivity, readability, reality, receptivity, reciprocity, reflexivity, regularity, relativity, reliability, religiosity, respectability, responsibility, retroactivity, rickety, rigidity, sanctity, scarcity, seasonality, security, selectivity, senility, seniority, sensibility, sensitivity, sensuality, sentimentality, serendipity, severity, sexuality, similarity, simplicity, sincerity, sobriety, society, solidarity, solidity, sorority, speciality, specificity, spirituality, spontaneity, stability, sterility, stupidity, subjectivity, suitability, superconductivity, superfluidity, superiority, supermajority, surety, survivability, susceptibility, sustainability, technicality, temerity, tenacity, theatricality, timidity, tonality, totality, toxicity, tranquility, transferability, triviality, turbidity, ubiquity, unanimity, unavailability, unfamiliarity, uniformity, universality, university, unpopularity, unpredictability, unreality, unreliability, uppity, utility, validity, variability, variety, varsity, velocity, velvety, venality, veracity, Verity, versatility, viability, virility, virtuosity, viscosity, visibility, vitality, volatility, voracity, vulgarity, vulnerability. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-f-i-n-o-p-r-t-y" | |
-2 letters: atropin, introfy, topiary. | |
-3 letters: aroint, aroynt, forint, frypan, notary, notify, painty, panfry, pantry, parity, parton, patron, pointy, profit, ratify, ration, tarpon, tropin. | |
-4 letters: afrit, aport, apron, atony, atopy, atrip, faint, fairy, foray, forty, front, inapt, infra, intro, irony, nifty, nitro, noria, orpin, paint, panto, panty, party, patin, patio, payor, piano, pinot, pinta, pinto. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-f-i-n-o-p-r-t-y" | |
+3 letters: unprofitably. | |
+5 letters: hyperinflation. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
