OBSCE'NENESS,

OBSCEN'ITY, noun [Latin obscaenitas.]

1. Impurity in expression or representation; that quality in words or things which presents what is offensive to chastity or purity of mind; ribaldry.

Cowley asserts plainly that obscenity has no place in wit.

Those fables were tempered with the Italian severity, and free from any note of infamy or obsceneness

No pardon vile obscenity should find.

2. Unchaste actions; lewdness.

To wash th' obscenities of night away.