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vulgar - 5 dictionary results

vul⋅gar

  [vuhl-ger]
Use vulgar in a Sentence
–adjective
1. characterized by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste: vulgar ostentation.
2. indecent; obscene; lewd: a vulgar work; a vulgar gesture.
3. crude; coarse; unrefined: a vulgar peasant.
4. of, pertaining to, or constituting the ordinary people in a society: the vulgar masses.
5. current; popular; common: a vulgar success; vulgar beliefs.
6. spoken by, or being in the language spoken by, the people generally; vernacular: vulgar tongue.
7. lacking in distinction, aesthetic value, or charm; banal; ordinary: a vulgar painting.
–noun
8. Archaic. the common people.
9. Obsolete. the vernacular.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME < L vulgāris, equiv. to vulg(us) the general public + -āris -ar 1

Related forms:
vul⋅gar⋅ly, adverb
vul⋅gar⋅ness, noun

Synonyms:
1. unrefined, inelegant, low, coarse, ribald. See common. 3. boorish, rude. 6. colloquial.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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vul·gar   (vŭl'gər)   
adj.  
  1. Crudely indecent.
    1. Deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement.
    2. Marked by a lack of good breeding; boorish. See Synonyms at common.
    3. Offensively excessive in self-display or expenditure; ostentatious: the huge vulgar houses and cars of the newly rich.
  3. Spoken by or expressed in language spoken by the common people; vernacular: the technical and vulgar names for an animal species.
  4. Of or associated with the great masses of people; common.

[Middle English, from Latin vulgāris, from vulgus, the common people.]
vul'gar·ly adv., vul'gar·ness n.
Word History: The word vulgar now brings to mind off-color jokes and offensive epithets, but it once had more neutral meanings. Vulgar is an example of pejoration, the process by which a word develops negative meanings over time. The ancestor of vulgar, the Latin word vulgāris (from vulgus, "the common people"), meant "of or belonging to the common people, everyday," as well as "belonging to or associated with the lower orders." Vulgāris also meant "ordinary," "common (of vocabulary, for example)," and "shared by all." An extension of this meaning was "sexually promiscuous," a sense that could have led to the English sense of "indecent." Our word, first recorded in a work composed in 1391, entered English during the Middle English period, and in Middle English and later English we find not only the senses of the Latin word mentioned above but also related senses. What is common may be seen as debased, and in the 17th century we begin to find instances of vulgar that make explicit what had been implicit. Vulgar then came to mean "deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement." From such uses vulgar has continued to go downhill, and at present "crudely indecent" is among the commonest senses of the word.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Vulgar

Vul"gar\, a. [L. vulgaris, from vulgus the multitude, the common people; of uncertain origin: cf. F. vulgaire. Cf. Divulge.]

1. Of or pertaining to the mass, or multitude, of people; common; general; ordinary; public; hence, in general use; vernacular. "As common as any the most vulgar thing to sense. " -- Shak.

Things vulgar, and well-weighed, scarce worth the praise. --Milton.

It might be more useful to the English reader . . . to write in our vulgar language. --Bp. Fell.

The mechanical process of multiplying books had brought the New Testament in the vulgar tongue within the reach of every class. --Bancroft.

2. Belonging or relating to the common people, as distinguished from the cultivated or educated; pertaining to common life; plebeian; not select or distinguished; hence, sometimes, of little or no value. "Like the vulgar sort of market men." --Shak.

Men who have passed all their time in low and vulgar life. --Addison.

In reading an account of a battle, we follow the hero with our whole attention, but seldom reflect on the vulgar heaps of slaughter. --Rambler.

3. Hence, lacking cultivation or refinement; rustic; boorish; also, offensive to good taste or refined feelings; low; coarse; mean; base; as, vulgar men, minds, language, or manners.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. --Shak.

Vulgar fraction. (Arith.) See under Fraction.

Vulgar

Vul"gar\, n. [Cf. F. vulgaire.]

1. One of the common people; a vulgar person. [Obs.]

These vile vulgars are extremely proud. --Chapman.

2. The vernacular, or common language. [Obs.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : vulgar
Spanish: vulgar, ordinario,
German: vulgär,
Japanese: 卑俗な
More Translations »

vulgar 
1391, "common, ordinary," from L. vulgaris "of or pertaining to the common people, common, vulgar," from vulgus "the common people, multitude, crowd, throng," from PIE base *wel- "to crowd, throng" (cf. Skt. vargah "division, group," Gk. eilein "to press, throng," M.Bret. gwal'ch "abundance," Welsh gwala "sufficiency, enough"). Meaning "coarse, low, ill-bred" is first recorded 1643, probably from earlier use (with reference to people) with meaning "belonging to the ordinary class" (1530). Vulgarian "rich person of vulgar manners" is recorded from 1804.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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