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Offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing of presenting to the mind or view something which delicacy, purity, and decency forbid to be exposed; impure; as, obscene language; obscene pictures. Words that were once chaste, by frequent use grew obscene and uncleanly. I. Watts.

That quality in words or things which presents what is offensive to chasity or purity of mind; obscene or impure lanquage or acts; moral impurity; lewdness; obsceneness; as, the obscenity of a speech, or a picture. Mr.Cowley asserts plainly, that obscenity has no place in wit. Dryden. No pardon vile obscenity should fi…

Causing or provoking hatred, repugnance, or disgust; offensive; disagreeable; repulsive; as, an odious sight; an odious smell. Milton. The odious side of that polity. Macaulay.

The quality that provokes hatred; offensiveness. She threw the odium of the fact on me. Dryden. Odium theologicum ( Etym: [L.], the enmity peculiar to contending theologians.

Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume. Meseemed I smelt a garden of sweet flowers, That dainty odors from them threw around. Spenser. To be in bad odor, to be out of favor, or in bad repute.

To be offensive to; to harm; to pain; to annoy; as, strong light offends the eye; to offend the conscience.

Unoffending; inoffensive.

To put in opposition to; to manifest in an offensive way; to threaten; as, to offer violence, attack, etc.

To surpass (Herod) in violence or wickedness; to exceed in any vicious or offensive particular. "It out-Herods Herod." Shak. Out-Heroding the preposterous fashions of the times. Sir W. Scott.

Popery; -- an offensive term. Milton.

oman catholic; one who adheres to the Church of Rome and the authority of the pope; -- an offensive designation applied to Roman Catholics by their opponents.

o an individual, his character, conduct, motives, or private affairs, in an invidious and offensive manner; as, personal reflections or remarks.

o the person, conduct, etc., of some individual, especially something of a disparaging or offensive nature; personal remarks; as, indulgence in personalities. Sharp personalities were exchanged. Macaulay.

Figuratively, something offensive or nauseous which must be accepted or endured. Udall. Pill beetle (Zoöl.), any small beetle of the genus Byrrhus, having a rounded body, with the head concealed beneath the thorax. -- Pill bug (Zoöl.), any terrestrial isopod of the genus Armadillo, having the habit of rolling itself i…

An instrument formerly used in extracting foreign or offensive matter from a wound.

with predetermination; designedly. In composing this discourse, I purposely declined all offensive and displeasing truths. Atterbury. So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong. Pope.

Proceeding from putrefaction, or partaking of the putrefactive process; having an offensive smell; stinking; rotten.

The act or the process of putrefying; the offensive decay of albuminous or other matter.

To render putrid; to cause to decay offensively; to cause to be decomposed; to cause to rot.

a putrid smell. Putrid fever (Med.), typhus fever; -- so called from the decomposing and offensive state of the discharges and diseased textures of the body. -- Putrid sore throat (Med.), a gangrenous inflammation of the fauces and pharynx.