salacious

adjective sa·la·cious \ sə-ˈlā-shəs \

|Updated on: 10 Jun 2018

Examples: salacious in a Sentence

Definition of salacious

1 : arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination

salacious headlines

salacious lyrics

2 : lecherous, lustful

… have fiercely denounced the book's sketches of melodramatic lovers and salacious partygoers …
—Casey Greenfield

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salaciously

adverb

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salaciousness

noun

See salacious defined for English-language learners

Examples of salacious in a Sentence

Lady Worsley's Whim, the story of Lady Worsley and her husband Sir Richard Worsley, is also reconstructed from some well-thumbed texts, in this case trial transcripts and newspaper reports of cases of "Criminal Conversation" which became popular eighteenth-century erotica. Charges … were brought by husbands seeking damages from the purported lovers of their supposedly adulterous wives, and the detail, which needed to be explicit, was frequently salacious. —Norma Clarke, Times Literary Supplement, 21 Nov. 2008
From snarky political commentary to salacious "memoirs" that flirt with both fact and fiction, scores of bloggers have gotten the book deal boon—with mixed results at the register. —Eunice Lee et al., Hyphen, Winter 2007
There's little difference between the junk mail in your mailbox and the junk e-mail that appears on your monitor, except that the e-mail is often of a salacious nature, e.g., the "hot, live XXX action" available at various dark alleyways on the web. —Michael Saunders, Boston Globe, 6 Oct.1997
a song with salacious lyrics
the salacious Greek god Pan is generally portrayed as having the legs, horns, and ears of a goat

Recent Examples of salacious from the Web

In his recent memoir, A Higher Loyalty, former FBI Director James Comey wrote about his decision to brief President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017 about the existence of the Steele dossier, which contained salacious allegations against him.

— matt ford, The New Republic, "Anatomy of a Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory," 22 May 2018
During that same meeting, Comey alerted Trump to the existence of salacious allegations concerning Russia prostitutes contained in a dossier compiled by a former British spy that had been circulating around Washington.

— Bloomberg.com, "Giuliani Offers New Explanation of Why Trump Fired Comey," 3 May 2018
That report may have been as damaging to Jackson's prospects among Republican senators as the more salacious allegations of drinking on the job.

— cathleen decker, latimes.com, "President's doctor pulls out as Veterans Affairs nominee amid misconduct allegations," 26 Apr. 2018
For many adolescent males like us back then, salacious content was the coin of the realm.

— mike kerrigan, WSJ, "A Centerfold and a Lesson From Mom," 10 May 2018
In 1949, six years before Kelly met her Monacan prince, Rita Hayworth married Prince Aly Khan in a swirl of drama that likely would make for a much more salacious movie adaptation than Kelly and Rainier’s romance, or Markle and Harry’s.

— refinery29.com, "The First American Celebrity To Marry Into Royalty Had A Shocking Life," 10 May 2018
Daniels's story, however salacious, would have likely paled in comparison and merely reinforced the playboy image Trump once cultivated.

— callum borchers, Washington Post, "Stormy Daniels is proving to be a bigger problem than Trump could have imagined," 9 May 2018
When advertisers discovered their ads running over terroristic, salacious, and inappropriate videos, many pulled away from YouTube and took their dollars with them.

— valentina palladino, Ars Technica, "Over a 5th of the world’s population is logging in to YouTube—despite scandals," 4 May 2018
That might not be as salacious as records showing payments to an adult film star or to a former Playboy Playmate, but taxi permits were once a bonanza for alternative asset investors.

— brandon kochkodin, Bloomberg.com, "Trump Lawyer Reportedly Invested in New York City Taxi Medallions," 10 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'salacious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.