salacious

adjective

sa·​la·​cious sə-ˈlā-shəs How to pronounce salacious (audio)
Synonyms of salaciousnext
1
: arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination
salacious headlines
salacious lyrics
2
: lecherous, lustful
… have fiercely denounced the book's sketches of melodramatic lovers and salacious partygoers …—Casey Greenfield
salaciously adverb
salaciousness noun

Synonyms

See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus 

Examples of salacious in a Sentence

Lady Worsley's Whim, the story of Lady Worsley and her husband Sir Richard Worsley, is also reconstructed from some well-thumbed texts, in this case trial transcripts and newspaper reports of cases of "Criminal Conversation" which became popular eighteenth-century erotica. Charges … were brought by husbands seeking damages from the purported lovers of their supposedly adulterous wives, and the detail, which needed to be explicit, was frequently salacious. —Norma Clarke, Times Literary Supplement, 21 Nov. 2008
From snarky political commentary to salacious "memoirs" that flirt with both fact and fiction, scores of bloggers have gotten the book deal boon—with mixed results at the register. —Eunice Lee et al., Hyphen, Winter 2007
There's little difference between the junk mail in your mailbox and the junk e-mail that appears on your monitor, except that the e-mail is often of a salacious nature, e.g., the "hot, live XXX action" available at various dark alleyways on the web. —Michael Saunders, Boston Globe, 6 Oct.1997
a song with salacious lyrics the salacious Greek god Pan is generally portrayed as having the legs, horns, and ears of a goat
Recent Examples on the Web What follows, albeit in list form rather than on a two-dimensional grid, is a ranking of TV dramas about British royals from least to most salacious, taking into account both luridness and seriousness. —Judy Berman, TIME, 5 Apr. 2024 Staff Pick: YouTube’s fake news problem Fake news YouTube channels that use AI tools to quickly churn out content have recently pivoted to target Black celebrities with salacious, false claims. —Elizabeth Robinson, NBC News, 31 Jan. 2024 The truth about Kate Middleton’s absence is far less funny, whimsical, or salacious than the endless memes and conspiracy theories suggested. —Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 22 Mar. 2024 But in her remarks at the Big Bethel A.M.E. Church in Atlanta, Willis did not address some of the more salacious accusations in Roman’s motion. —Josh Meyer, USA TODAY, 19 Jan. 2024 My fascination with the people who lived at Willard wasn’t without some salacious curiosity and an expectation that their lives, presumably more extreme, more vivid than mine, were worthy of art. —Seyward Darby, Longreads, 13 Mar. 2024 The play-by-play of who’s-aligned-with-who and who-said-what-to-whom may have the air of a salacious HBO drama, but, naked Oppenheimer tweets aside, this argument would seem to run deeper than a superficial tussle of big egos. —Allie Garfinkle, Fortune, 5 Mar. 2024 But Willis did not address some of the more salacious accusations in Roman’s motion. —Josh Meyer, USA TODAY, 18 Jan. 2024 What ensues between these salacious bookends is, well, captivating. —Nicole Kliest, Vogue, 1 Mar. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'salacious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Latin salac-, salax, from salire to move spasmodically, leap — more at sally

First Known Use

circa 1645, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of salacious was circa 1645

Dictionary Entries Near salacious

salable

salacious

salacity

See More Nearby Entries 

Cite this Entry

“Salacious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/salacious. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

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