expletive deleted
Swear word redacted
Expletive deleted is a placeholder indicating that profanity has been removed from quoted material.
The phrase became famous during the Watergate scandal, when transcripts of Nixon's White House tapes used it repeatedly: He said—expletive deleted—that we should stonewall it.
Now often used humorously to signal self-censorship or to emphasize that something unprintable was said.
- bad languageObscene or offensive words
- bowdlerizeRemove objectionable content
- euphemismMild substitute for bluntness
- redactionObscuring sensitive text
- redacted textConcealed sensitive information
bleeped out · curse · expurgation · sanitization · official record · veiling · Nixon · suppression · Watergate · White House tapes · tape recording · smoking gun · masking · swearword · obfuscation · softening · censorship · pardon my French
- Nixon eraNixon, Watergate scandal, resignation, impeachment, coverup
expletive deleteduncensored
Without removed content
unredacted · unexpurgated · unedited · verbatim · explicit
expletive deletedvulgar language
Coarse or obscene speech
foul language · unvarnished · unsanitized · blue language · four-letter words
expletive, delete, deleted, expletives, deletes, deleting, deletion, deletions, deplete