Grawlixes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A sequence of typographic symbols like @, #, $, and & printed in place of a curse word or obscenity
2. A row of special characters such as asterisks and punctuation marks used to replace profanity in written material
3. A combination of keyboard symbols and special characters that stands in for an offensive or forbidden word in text

Etymology: Cartoonists have long needed a way to show a character swearing without printing the actual words, and the solution most readers know is a row of symbols like @#$%&!. That practice got a name in 1964, when the American comic strip writer Mort Walker, creator of "Beetle Bailey," published a humorous article titled "Let's Get Down to Grawlixes" in The Cartoonist. He coined the word for these meaningless strings of symbols, and it may have been shaped by the influence of "growl." The word "grawlixes" is simply the plural of "grawlix." Walker's invention was a deliberate joke rather than a term drawn from an older language, so there is no classical root to trace. Its sense is narrow: a grawlix does not spell anything, it only signals that profanity is being used.

Synonyms: expletives, obscenities