LEWD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does lewd mean? 

• LEWD (adjective)
  The adjective LEWD has 2 senses:

1. suggestive of or tending to moral looseness

2. driven by lust; preoccupied with or exhibiting lustful desires

  Familiarity information: LEWD used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEWD (adjective)

Comparative: lewder   
Superlative: lewdest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Suggestive of or tending to moral looseness

Synonyms:

lewd; obscene; raunchy; salacious

Context example:

salacious limericks

Similar:

dirty ((of behavior or especially language) characterized by obscenity or indecency)

Derivation:

lewdness (the trait of behaving in an obscene manner)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Driven by lust; preoccupied with or exhibiting lustful desires

Synonyms:

lascivious; lewd; libidinous; lustful

Context example:

libidinous orgies

Similar:

sexy (marked by or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest)

 Context examples 

He had made his name as the most lewd and bloodthirsty tyrant that had ever governed any country with a pretence to civilization.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me, but assured him at the same time, “that my birth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education; that nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of money), whom they hate and despise. That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father, among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)