vulgar language
Offensive spoken words
Vulgar language is speech considered crude, offensive, or socially inappropriate—profanity, obscenity, and coarse expressions.
The term often appears in content warnings, workplace policies, and parental guidelines: The film contains vulgar language and violence.
What counts as vulgar varies by context; words acceptable among friends may be inappropriate in formal settings.
- curse wordsTaboo expletives
- bad wordsOffensive or taboo vocabulary
- cursingUsing profane language
- expletivesVulgar exclamations
- bawdinessIndecent or vulgar quality
swearing · blasphemy · epithets · imprecations · pardon my French · vulgarities · crudities · invectives · profanity · scatology · pejoratives · oaths · racial slurs · four-letter words · indecency · filthiness · lewdness · locker-room talk
- locker room talkcrude jokes, dirty jokes, trash talk, smack talk, bragging
- street harassmentcatcalling, groping, wolf whistling, following, stalking
vulgar languageformal language
Elevated, rule-governed expression
high style · courtly speech · eloquence · King's English · Queen's English
vulgar languageclean language
Speech free of profanity
civil discourse · proper speech · diplomatic language · euphemism
vulgar languagesacred language
Speech reserved for worship
prayer · scripture · benediction · blessing
language, slang, vulgar, vulgarity, vulgarism, vulgarian, vulgarly, vulgarize, vulgarized