expletive

Meanings

Adjective

• Serving to fill up, merely for effect, otherwise redundant.
• Marked by expletives (phrase-fillers).

Noun

• A profane, vulgar term, notably a curse or obscene oath.
• A word without meaning added to fill a syntactic position.
• A word that adds to the strength of a phrase without affecting its meaning.

Origin

• From Late Latin explētīvus ("serving to fill out"), from Latin explētus, the perfect passive participle of expleō, itself from ex + *pleō.