Dictionary

salacity en · NOUN

Etymology

From salac(ious) + -ity, from Latin salācitās (“promoting sexual desire or lust”) (whence -acity), from salāx (“prone to leaping, provocative”), from saliō (“leap, jump, bound”).

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The state or quality of being salacious; lewdness, obscenity, bawdiness.
   • One of the males is sufficient in procreation for seuen or nine of the females, and by that means they are made more fruitful, but if you put them one male to one femal, then will the venereous salacity of the male procure abortment. 1607, Edward Topsell, “Of the Indian little Pig-Cony”, in The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, London, page 112:
   • The Portugueze, tho’ eminently abſtemious and temperate in all other Things, are unbounded in their Luſts; and perhaps they ſubſtitute the former in room of a Surgeon, as a Counterpoiſon to the Miſchiefs of a promiſcuous Salacity: They have moſt of them Venereal Taints, and with Age become meager and hectick: […] 1724, Charles Johnson [pseudonym], A General History of the Pyrates, […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for, and sold by T. Warner, […], →OCLC, pages 203–204:
   • Aristotle gives instance in sparrows, which are parum vivaces ob salacitatem, short-lived because of their salacity, which is very frequent […] 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2, member 2:
   • She had had no experience with this class of individuals whatsoever, and did not know the salacity and humour of the theatrical tribe. 1900, Theodore Dreiser, chapter 26, in Sister Carrie, New York: Doubleday, Page, page 270:
   • Although it would have been allowed, I did not keep a journal over those six months. From the start I saw that what I wanted to say, although ‘hereafter, in a better world than this’ it might find other readers and do its good, would have brought nothing but scorn and salacity at the time. 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 11, in The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 148:
2. (countable, usually) An act that is salacious, (lewd, obscene or bawdy); a salacious image or piece of writing.
   • […] from the hilltop were to be seen no cluttered barren lots sodden with spring rain and churned and torn by hoof of horse and cattle, no piles of winter ashes and rusting tin cans, no dingy hoardings covered with the tattered insanities of posted salacities and advertisements. 1922, William Faulkner, “The Hill”, in Carvel Collins, editor, William Faulkner: Early Prose and Poetry, Boston: Little, Brown, published 1962, page 91:
   • The editors of the Unitarian New Version of the New Testament, who very modestly wish to shovel all these spurcities and salacities out of the sacred text, have the impudence to tell us, in a note, that they were interpolated to lessen the odium attached to Christianity […] 1829, Robert Taylor, The Diegesis, London: Richard Carlile, Chapter 22, p. 216, footnote:
   • Sartre decrees that Gustave was never homosexual; merely passive and feminine in his psychology. The byplay with Bouilhet was just teasing, the outer edge of vivid male friendship: Gustave never committed a single homosexual act in all his life. He says he did, but that was boastful invention: Bouilhet asked for salacities from Cairo, and Flaubert provided them [in his letters]. 1984, Julian Barnes, chapter 7, in Flaubert’s Parrot, New York: Vintage, published 1990:

Forms

Translations (8)

fr salacité (the state or quality of being salacious) · bg похотливост (the state or quality of being salacious) · it salacità (the state or quality of being salacious) · et iharus (the state or quality of being salacious) · bg вулгарност (a salacious act) · pt salacidade (the state or quality of being salacious) · la salācitās (the state or quality of being salacious) · es salacidad (the state or quality of being salacious)