expletive deleted
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Attested since at least the 1930s, but popularized in the U.S. after the Watergate scandal, during which transcripts of conversations were published with profanity replaced by “[EXPLETIVE DELETED]”.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]expletive deleted (plural expletives deleted)
- (euphemistic, humorous) An all-purpose profanity.
Adjective
[edit]expletive deleted (not comparable)
- (euphemistic, humorous) An all-purpose profanity.
- 2003, Toby Miller, “What It Is and What It Isn’t: Cultural Studies Meets Graduate Student Labor”, in Austin Sarat, Jonathan Simon, editors, Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism, Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 90:
- You are paid a lot of money; kindly do some expletive-deleted work.
Verb
[edit]- (rare, euphemistic, humorous) To have sex with.
- 1993, Steve Allen, Make ’em laugh, Prometheus Books, page 293:
- I’d like to expletive deleted you.
Oh, expletive, that’s what I’d like to do.