as in grossness
the quality or state of being obscene
the sheer raunch of the movie earned it a NC-17 rating
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Recent Examples of raunch
In 2016, Ariel Levy hung out with Wong, risking her life in the passenger seat of the comedian’s RAV4 and learning about her particular brand of radical raunch.
—
Hannah Jocelyn, The New Yorker, 15 Oct. 2024
Read: The cruel social experiment of reality TV For its recent seasons, Love Island USA moved to Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, which enabled it to embrace the low-stakes raunch of its foreign counterpart.
—Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 7 Aug. 2024
Harley Quinn is raunch, sweetness, and violence all in one, partly thanks to its assured voice acting (Kaley Cuoco’s Harley is great, but Ron Funches’s King Shark is the heart of the series.)
24.
—Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 1 Aug. 2024
Female viewers appear drawn by the romance and the toned bodies, of course, but also by the entirely consensual nature of the vigorous raunch, the desire for mutual pleasure between partners and the relative absence of macho toxicity.
—David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
See All Example Sentences for raunch
Hannah Jocelyn, The New Yorker, 15 Oct. 2024
Read: The cruel social experiment of reality TV For its recent seasons, Love Island USA moved to Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, which enabled it to embrace the low-stakes raunch of its foreign counterpart.
—Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 7 Aug. 2024
Harley Quinn is raunch, sweetness, and violence all in one, partly thanks to its assured voice acting (Kaley Cuoco’s Harley is great, but Ron Funches’s King Shark is the heart of the series.)
24.
—Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 1 Aug. 2024
Female viewers appear drawn by the romance and the toned bodies, of course, but also by the entirely consensual nature of the vigorous raunch, the desire for mutual pleasure between partners and the relative absence of macho toxicity.
—David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
See All Example Sentences for raunch
Recent Examples of Synonyms for raunch
Noun
-
He is charged with open and lewd grossness.—
Flint McColgan,
Boston Herald,
24 Oct. 2025
-
In fact, plenty of other things in your home surpass the toilet in terms of grossness.—
Mary Cornetta,
Better Homes & Gardens,
24 Sep. 2025
Noun
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With its insistent, obsessive patter, not to mention its unrelenting commitment to in-your-face vulgarity, Sherman’s comedy is hardly for everyone.—
Naomi Fry,
New Yorker,
6 Dec. 2025
-
The artist’s way, of course, is sincere, even if in the case of Dracula, sincerity begets just under three hours of unsparing cultural commentary and full goose bozo vulgarity.—
Andy Crump,
Time,
31 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
The other funnymen of the time—Milton Berle with his lewd suggestiveness, Jackie Gleason with his baleful roar—did the same shtick over and over.—
David Denby,
New Yorker,
10 Nov. 2025
Noun
-
There’s some rudeness, aggressive conversations, and crudeness, but nothing too over the top.—
Lynnette Nicholas,
Parents,
4 Aug. 2025
Noun
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Why did so many people in states with Democrat-majority governments want to keep the COVID emergency going, want it so badly that all rational arguments offered in support of reopening were ignored or answered with obscenity-laden accusations of grandma-killing?—
Susan Shelley,
Oc Register,
7 Jan. 2026
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Pandering obscenity is a felony and could mean eight years in prison and a $15,000 fine for McCollister if he is convicted.—
Charlotte Phillipp,
PEOPLE,
28 Dec. 2025
Noun
-
There is plenty of coarseness in American arenas totally unrelated to MAGA or Trumpism, of course.—
Sally Jenkins,
The Atlantic,
11 Oct. 2025
-
An alkaline compound, baking soda is a non-toxic cleaner with a coarseness that works wonders for scrubbing grime, removing difficult stains, and deodorizing stinky odors.—
Lauren David,
Southern Living,
9 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Despite the heavy central theme of chronic illness, there’s a delicious bawdiness to Will There Ever Be Another You, a vulgar juvenilia evoking graffiti-tag genitals or the ding dong ditch scene from Billy Madison.—
Eric Olson
September 23,
Literary Hub,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Over-Nite Sensation is a triumph: a concentrated digest from perhaps the most popular stretch of his career, and a freeze-frame of his compositional flowering and ingenious lyrical ribaldry.—
Daniel Felsenthal,
The Atlantic,
27 Nov. 2023
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Finding liberty in punk artistry, Dury updated the tradition of British music-hall ribaldry and rude folk humor.—
Armond White,
National Review,
3 Aug. 2022
Cite this Entry
“Raunch.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/raunch. Accessed 17 Jan. 2026.
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