salacious means promoting sexual desire or lust. It carries an Arena rating of 1682, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, salacious ranks #4,000 of 17,122 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #4,078 of 17,123 for Most Malleable Words, #4,778 of 17,118 for Scariest Words, #5,847 of 17,114 for Most Satisfying to Say.
salacious is pronounced /səˈleɪ.ʃəs/.
Why “salacious” is a great word
Characterized by or arousing an excessive or indecent interest in sexual matters. From the Latin salax, salacis ("lustful, provocative," originally "fond of leaping," as in a male animal) + the English suffix -ious, first attested in the 1660s. Unlike "ardent," which can burn with a chaste intensity, or "suggestive," which merely hints from the shadows, salacious is explicitly and offensively fixated on the prurient detail. It is the greasy thumbprint on a well-worn page of scandal, the exaggerated leer of a gossip leaning close, the lurid neon glow of a tabloid headline—a word that feels like desire unmasked not as love, but as trespass.
Etymology
Derived from Latin salāx, salācis (“provocative, lustful”) + -ious.
adj
- Promoting sexual desire or lust.e.g.“utterly salacious”
- Lascivious, bawdy, obscene, lewd.e.g.“salacious gossip”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.