Dictionary entry

Vulgarism

Webster's Dictionary 1913

Vul″gar‐ism (?), n. [Cf. F. vulgarisme.]

1. Grossness; rudeness; vulgarity.

2. A vulgar phrase or expression.

A fastidious taste will find offense in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call “slang,” which not a few of our writers seem to have affected. Coleridge.