salacious

UK/səˈleɪ.ʃəs/US/səˈleɪ.ʃəs/

adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,926 of 15,258neutral

Salacious means dwelling on sex in a way meant to titillate. Salacious details, a salacious rumour, salacious gossip.

It is a criticism of the telling rather than of the subject, since salacious detail is detail included for the effect it has. It is a favourite word of complaints about the press.

Definitions of salacious

1adjectivesalaciousDwelling on sex in a way meant to titillate.C2
“The novel was banned for its salacious scenes in the bedroom.”

salacious is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin salax means lustful, from salire, to leap.

Proto-Indo-European
*sel-
Latin
salāx — provocative, lustful
English, today
salacious

Derived from Latin salāx (“provocative, lustful”) -ious, ultimately from saliō -acious.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

salacious in the wild

Despite the salacious title, the film shows only the expression on the young man's face; the implied sexual act itself is not seen.
Blow Job (1964 film)
McCallum argued that Balfour naming salacious books had the effect of greatly increasing their sales.
David A. Balfour
Priapus was sarcastically called "Salacissimus Jupiter," hence salax, lustful, salacious; and in Gaelic, salach (from sal); German, sal, polluted, defiled.
Fíneamhain
The group name is inspired by the Aristocrats joke and consequently the song titles on their eponymous debut album are rife with salacious double-entendres.
The Aristocrats (band)
Since his role as Devendra was much celebrated, he has often been typecast in salacious, negative roles in a number of Bengali films.
Kaushik Banerjee

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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