obscenus

• obscaenus

Uncertain. According to Pokorny, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweyn- (“to soil; mud; filth”) and cognate with inquinō, caenum, cūniō and whin.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ɔpˈskeː.nʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [obˈʃɛː.nus]

obscēnus (feminine obscēna, neuter obscēnum, superlative obscēnissimus); first/second-declension adjective

1. inauspicious, ominous, portentous
2. repulsive, offensive, abominable, hateful, disgusting, filthy
3. immodest, impure, indecent, lewd, obscene
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 3.675–676:

     nunc mihi cūr cantent superest obscēna puellae
     dīcere; nam coeunt certaque probra canunt

     Now it remains for me to say why the girls sing obscene songs,
     for they get together and recite certain indecencies.
     (The ancient Roman festival of Anna Perenna included merry references to a mythological prank: After Mars asked the elderly goddess Anna to help him woo young Minerva, a veiled Anna fooled Mars by entering his bedchamber herself and mocking the god once he realized the deception.)

First/second-declension adjective.

• “obscenus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “obscenus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• obscenus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Pokorny, Julius (1959) Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 628