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# expletive

«expletive» in Mova's school dictionary: **a swear word or rude exclamation, said when angry, hurt…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (an expletive, expletives); adjective (formal)

### meaning for a pupil

1) An expletive is a swear word or rude exclamation, said when angry, hurt or surprised. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#m1)

2) (grammar) An expletive is a word like «it» or «there» that fills a place in a sentence without meaning, as in «There is a cat» or «It is raining». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In news and formal writing, «expletive deleted» shows a swear word was removed. Pupils meet it in stories and when talking about polite language. In grammar lessons it is a dummy word. Phrases: «expletive deleted», «a string of expletives».

### examples

- He dropped the hammer on his toe and let out an expletive. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#x1)
- The newspaper replaced the expletive with stars. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#x2)
- Please don't use expletives in class. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#x3)
- A string of expletives came from the angry driver. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#x4)
- In «It is snowing», «it» is an expletive. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#x5)
- The coach shouted an expletive when the ball missed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/#x6)

### note

Formal word for «swear word». Countable. Swear words are rude; use polite words in school. In grammar, the expletive «it» or «there» has no real meaning of its own.

### In the corpora

- ["Expletive deleted" means a swear word was said here and has been left out of the written record.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/39-pardon-my-french/15/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «expletive» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/expletive/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.