adjective
vulgar
lacking refinement or cultivation or taste
Where it comes from
Vulgar comes from Latin vulgaris, belonging to the common people, from vulgus, the multitude or crowd. Early English senses included common, ordinary, and generally used.
How the meaning developed
Elite judgments turned association with ordinary people into a judgment of low breeding or taste, then coarseness and obscenity. In Vulgar Latin, the older sense remains: popular everyday Latin rather than swear-filled Latin.
From our TikTok: Read post 1
Sources
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-09-25. Report a correction.