as in curse
a disrespectful or indecent word or expression was reprimanded for teaching his little brother cusswords

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of cussword This wasn't an in-the-moment cussword thrown down in the middle of a passionate, blow out fight. Ashley Iaconetti, Cosmopolitan, 30 Aug. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cussword
Noun
  • After turning undead and hiding her bite wound, Mary easily gets permission to re-enter the building, and quickly seduces Stack, before murdering him and infecting him with the vampire curse.
    Dani Di Placido, Forbes.com, 24 Apr. 2025
  • Maybe that’s more blessing than curse in our age of baldly allegorical horror movies.
    A.A. Dowd, Rolling Stone, 17 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • Subtitles are easy to add to film, but, for the most part, they were used only when actors and audiences spoke different languages.
    David Owen, New Yorker, 21 Apr. 2025
  • Pope Francis preached the same gospel in different language.
    John Hope Bryant, Time, 21 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • Is this the kind of situation where mild swears seem generally used?
    Stacey Colino, Time, 1 Apr. 2025
  • Could a nice good swear on the pitch to express one’s anger stop a player from lashing out physically, channelling their anger through their vocal cords rather than their fists?
    Nick Miller, The Athletic, 21 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • And, when the alarm wails hours before dawn, human cusses of angry protest join the chorus of budget appliances failing before their time.
    Virginia Konchan, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2024
  • My grandmother extended a ladder up into this tough old cuss of a tree and climbed up, at some risk, to pick the bulging fruit.
    Jim Meddleton, The Christian Science Monitor, 1 May 2024
Noun
  • As expletives begin flying, Conrad arrives to calm things down.
    Matt Cabral, EW.com, 27 Apr. 2025
  • Johnson exclaimed while recoiling, seemingly followed by inaudible expletives.
    Elizabeth Crisp, The Hill, 8 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • The plotline’s matter-of-fact profanity at once punctured any sense of simplistic morality and underlined that world events always coexist with everyday indignities.
    Alison Herman, Variety, 17 Apr. 2025
  • And the American president used profanities over how Israel carried out the war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas.
    Luke Broadwater, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2025
Noun
  • As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, the expression not hardly is considered a vulgarism.
    NR Editors, National Review, 16 Apr. 2020
  • The British cringed over new American accents, coinages and vulgarisms.
    Time, Time, 11 June 2019
Noun
  • This species has no fragrance; its lavender appellation simply acknowledges its flower color while its rosemary epithet indicates its seacoast habitat.
    Joshua Siskin, Orange County Register, 22 Mar. 2025
  • More than a decade after Breaking Bad ended, Aaron Paul still can’t escape his character’s signature epithet.
    John Russell, People.com, 19 Mar. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Cussword.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cussword. Accessed 3 May. 2025.

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