English → Latin
“obscene” in Latin
obscēnusinauspicious, ominous, portentous; repulsive, offensive, abominable, hateful, disgusting, filthy; immodest, impure, indeimmundusunclean, impure, dirty, filthy, foulspurcusdirty, foul, unclean; morally-polluted, base, mean
The English word obscene itself goes back to Latin caenum, through obscēnus.
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
obscene
obscenus (exciting disgust): immundus (unclean, impure): spurcus (filthy, nasty): an obscene song, canticum obscenum: to use obscene language, verbis obscenis uti; obscena dicere; obsceno jocandi genere uti.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for obscene?
- The usual Latin words for “obscene” are obscēnus, immundus, spurcus. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.