scatological
Britishadjective
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characterized by obscenity or preoccupation with obscenity, esp in the form of references to excrement
-
of or relating to the scientific study of excrement
Explanation
Anything scatological is "off-color" or a bit offensive, typically because it refers to excrement, especially in a joking way. This is a word that describes a kind of immature humor you sometimes encounter in movies or TV shows. Scatological humor is of questionable taste, but it's not quite obscene. Your little brother who thinks toilet jokes are hilarious? You can say that he's a fan of scatological humor.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He meets his slightly older schoolmate Olympia, one of Eggers’ most beguiling creations, when she implores him to scrawl scatological bathroom graffiti on a playground structure in Old-English typography.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Vance has publicly criticised the extremists, at one point using a scatological insult against Fuentes during an interview with website Unherd.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
Has becoming a dad made him more scatological?
From New York Times ● Dec. 20, 2023
Victor Estrada’s loose, abstract paintings are vaguely scatological, the excretions of oil paint creating playful, self-contained landscapes of organic imagination confined within the four edges of a canvas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2023
The importance which scatological rites and ceremonials, that is, certain peculiar niceties practiced in connection with the emptying of the bowels, play in the evolution of the race have been extensively discussed in literature.
From Studies in Forensic Psychiatry by Bernard Glueck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
