four-letter word

1. 1.

   any of several short English words (often having 4 letters) generally regarded as obscene or offensive

   Synonymsfour-letter Anglo-Saxon word

   Broaderword

Questions about four-letter word

What does four-letter word mean?

four-letter word means "any of several short English words (often having 4 letters) generally regarded as obscene or offensive".

What is another word for four-letter word?

Close synonyms include four-letter Anglo-Saxon word. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is four-letter word a common word?

four-letter word is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.