Ribald
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A person who is filthy or vulgar in nature.
"After, he made an harlot, a ribald, come to him alone for to touch his members and his body, to move to lechery."
- 2 a ribald person; someone who uses vulgar and offensive language wordnet
- 1 Coarsely, vulgarly, or lewdly amusing; referring to sexual matters in a rude or irreverent way.
"[L]et no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar."
- 1 humorously vulgar wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"[L]et no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar."
Etymology
From Middle English ribald, from Old French ribaud, ribauld (“rogue, scoundrel”) ( > English ribaud), from Old French riber (“to be licentious”), from Frankish *rīban (“to copulate, be in heat”, literally “to rub”), from Proto-Germanic *wrībaną (“to turn, twist, writhe”), from Proto-Indo-European *werp-, *werb- (“to turn, twist”) + Old French -aud, from Frankish *-wald. Related to Old High German rīban (“to rub”), German reiben (“to rub”), Dutch wrijven (“to rub”). Compare also Old High German hrība (“prostitute”). See also English wrap.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.