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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
profanity
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Freed in the slipstream of profanity, it took wing.
▪ He knew far more profanity than Scripture, and used and enjoyed it more.
▪ His dress is famously unfashionable, his temper famously short, his profanities notoriously rich.
▪ It is one thing to shock a parent with casual profanity.
▪ It was part prayer, part profanity.
▪ Their exchanges are filled with hesitations, contractions, slang and prejudice, as well as the strange poetry of profanity.
▪ There's also a letter from the Lemon Grove city clerk, peppered with profanity, that she never wrote.
▪ We need new profanity because familiar profanity has lost its punch.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Profanity

Profanity \Pro*fan"i*ty\, n. [L. profanitas.]

  1. The quality or state of being profane; profaneness; irreverence; esp., the use of profane language; blasphemy.

  2. That which is profane; profane language or acts.

    The brisk interchange of profanity and folly.
    --Buckminster.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
profanity

c.1600, from Late Latin profanitas, from Latin profanus (see profane (adj.)). Extended sense of "foul language" is from Old Testament commandment against "profaning" the name of the Lord.

Wiktionary
profanity

n. 1 (context uncountable English) The quality of being profane. 2 (context countable English) obscene, lewd or abusive language.

WordNet
profanity

n. vulgar or irreverent speech or action

Wikipedia
Profanity

Profanity, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is "an offensive word" or "offensive language". It is also called bad language, strong language, coarse language, foul language, bad words, vulgar language, lewd language, swearing, cursing, cussing, or using expletives. This use is a subset of a language's lexicon that is generally considered to be strongly impolite, rude or offensive. It can show a debasement of someone or something, or show intense emotion. Profanity in this sense takes the form of words or verbal expressions that fall into the category of formulaic language.

In its older, more literal sense, the term "profanity" refers to "offensive words, or religious words", used in a way that shows the user does not respect "God or holy things", or behaviour showing similar disrespect.

Profanity (instant messaging client)

__NOTOC__ Profanity is a text mode instant messaging interface that supports the XMPP protocol which will run on Linux, OS X and Windows using Cygwin.

Packages are available in Debian, Ubuntu and Arch linux distributions.

Features include multi-user chat, desktop notifications and Off The Record message encryption.

Usage examples of "profanity".

Or, amongst a thousand other examples, who that has borne with our presumptuous profanities and ingratitude and at last in His own good hour has set our erring feet upon the paths of peace?

He used one of the short, semantically ugly terms which serve, in place of profanity, as the emotional release of a race that has forgotten all the taboos and terminologies of supernaturalistic religion and sex-inhibition.

Other than profanity, the only other Catalonian Raoul had taught me during the many years of our friendship was how to ask if there was a good bar nearby.

From their faces, I got the feeling that for Cera profanity was still a treat reserved for special occasions.

Her mind screamed it, but she refused to utter aloud that foulest of profanities.

The words knotted themselves into sentences, which bound themselves into paragraphs, and I spoke the foulest profanities that had ever assailed my ears.

Doyle glanced from the machines to the troops, then back to the cluster of angry felines, one of the tigerlike creatures, his expression that of a man halfway through a string of profanity, balled one forepaw into a fist, and slammed it savagely into the other forepaw.

The Chints tribe have incited to profanity long enough, and shall make the night hideous no more.

I never had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some frequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every day and night, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them through their door, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke and profanity.

Major Brouvaird, from the Offloading Center, emerged from under the table with the other Space Force officers, stared around, and let loose a string of awed profanity.

She had also rejected, with blunt profanity, sexual overtures from some of the men.

At the center of the circle was Tom Cook Clark, an assistant coach, an expert on quarterbacking, known as a scholarly man because he smoked a pipe and did not use profanity.

Peters, and talked with him a great deal: told him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal history, and wove a glittering streak of profanity through his garrulous fabric that was refreshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecorated speech.

In one of the hushes there came a blow on the outside of the door that made Beaton jump, and swear with a modified profanity that merged itself in apostrophic prayer.

A British oath from the deck of the ship went out to meet a fine French explosion of profanity from the boat, both forestalling the splash of the tangled rope into the water under the bows of the ship, and a full ten yards out of the reach of the man who stood, boathook in hand, ready to catch it.