risqué

Definition

Slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.

Etymology

Borrowed from French risqué (“risky”), an adjective use of the past participle of risquer (“to put at risk; to risk”), from risque (“risk”, noun) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). Risque is derived from Old Italian risco (“risk”) (modern Italian rischio), possibly a deverbal from resecare or from Vulgar Latin *resecum, both from Latin resecō (“to cut loose or off, etc.”), from re- (intensifying prefix) + secō (“to cut; to cut off”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut; to cut off, sever”)).

Example Sentences

• "[S]he was angry with herself; and, for that, sang the more loudly the most wicked and risqué of her slang songs, that gave the morals of a Messalina in the language of a fish-wife, and yet had an inalienable, mischievous, contagious, dauntless French grace in it withal."
• "Never blame society,—it buys books! Now if you could write a smart love-story, slightly risqué,—even a little more than risqué for that matter; that is the sort of thing that suits the present age."
• "Therefore he placed along with this couple who had become one, Margaret, the gamesome lady's-maid, who is risquée in her talk with her mistress, and has Borachio as a lover—so anxious is [William] Shakespeare for variety of character and of life."