Profanity

How to spell profanity

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce profanity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does profanity mean?

1. nounObscene or offensive language; swearing.
2. nounDisrespect or contempt shown toward something regarded as sacred.

Profanity in a sentence

• The manager warned staff that profanity would not be tolerated on the call.

• The elders viewed the joke about the shrine as outright profanity.

• The film carries a content warning for graphic violence and frequent profanity.

• Treating the memorial as a picnic spot struck many visitors as profanity.

Where does profanity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Profanity traces back to the Latin word profanus, which literally described something that stood 'before' or 'outside the temple', from pro meaning 'before, outside' and fanum meaning 'temple' or 'sacred place'. To the Romans, anything profanus was simply unconsecrated, the ordinary world set apart from holy ground rather than something shocking. The Late Latin noun profanitas captured this quality of being unhallowed, and English adopted profanity in the late 1500s, at first to mean irreverence or disrespect toward sacred things. Over the following centuries the sense narrowed and coarsened toward the modern everyday meaning of obscene or blasphemous language, since cursing was the most common way people treated the sacred with contempt. The shared fanum root still surfaces in the word 'fanatic', originally an inspired temple devotee, and remembering that hidden 'temple' inside profanity helps fix the single f and the -an- in the middle.

How the word is built

• pro- (before, outside)
• fan (from Latin fanum: temple)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)