Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
adjective
- offending against generally accepted standards of propriety or good taste; improper; vulgar: indecent jokes; indecent language; indecent behavior.
- not decent; unbecoming or unseemly: indecent haste.
adjective
- offensive to standards of decency, esp in sexual matters
- unseemly or improper (esp in the phrase indecent haste)
1560s, “unbecoming, in bad taste,” from French indécent (14c.), from Latin indecentem (nominative indecens), from in- “not, opposite of, without” (see in- (1)) + decens (see decent). Sense of “offending against propriety” is from 1610s. Indecent assault (1861) originally covered sexual assaults other than rape or intended rape, but by 1934 it was being used as a euphemism for “rape.” Related: Indecently