Grawlix () or obscenicon is the use of

typographical symbols Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spac ...

to replace

profanity Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such a ...

. Mainly used in

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

and

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

, it is used to get around language restrictions or censorship in publishing.

At sign The at sign () is an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 Widget (economics), widgets @ £2 per widget = £14), now seen more widely in email addresses and social media platform User (computing), handles. It is norm ...

s (@),

dollar sign The dollar sign, also known as the peso sign, is a currency symbol consisting of a Letter case, capital crossed with one or two vertical strokes ( or depending on typeface), used to indicate the unit of various currency, currencies around ...

s ($),

number sign The symbol is known as the number sign, hash, (or in North America) the pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a Typographic ligature, ligatured abbre ...

s (#),

ampersand The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram , representing the grammatical conjunction, conjunction "and". It originated as a typographic ligature, ligature of the letters of the word (Latin for "and"). Etymology Tradi ...

s (&),

percent sign The percent sign (sometimes per cent sign in British English) is the symbol used to indicate a percentage, a number or ratio as a fraction (mathematics), fraction of 100. Related signs include the permille (per thousand) sign and the Basis p ...

s (%), and

asterisk The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

s (*) are often used symbols. The characters may resemble the letters they replace, such as "$" standing in for "S".

History

The first known grawlix appeared in November 1, 1901 story of Gene Carr's

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

''Lady Bountiful'', with the title "Lady Bountiful is Shocked", and continued to expand its usage throughout 1902 and 1903. In December 12, 1902, ''

The Katzenjammer Kids ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years (1914 to 1949). In 1964, American cartoonist

Mort Walker Addison Morton Walker (September 3, 1923 – January 27, 2018) was an American comic strip writer, best known for creating the newspaper comic strips ''Beetle Bailey'' in 1950 and ''Hi and Lois'' in 1954. He signed Addison to some of his strips. ...

popularized the term "grawlix" in his article ''Let's Get Down to Grawlixes'', which he expanded upon in his book '' The Lexicon of Comicana''. The

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

represents a face with grawlixes over the mouth. It was proposed in 2016 and accepted into Unicode 10.0 in 2017. In June 2018, the word 'grawlix' was added to the

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an list of companies of the United States by state, American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is mostly known for Webster's Dictionary, its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary pub ...

dictionary. In November 2022,

and

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

added the word to the seventh edition of ''The Official

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a Board game, game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, re ...

Players Dictionary'', citing familiarity among younger players. In March 2025, the word 'grawlix' was added to the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

Etymology

blog post states that the word ''grawlix'' was coined by cartoonist Mort Walker (creator of the comic strip

Beetle Bailey ''Beetle Bailey'' is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Mort Walker, published since September 4, 1950. It is set on a fictional United States Army post. In the years just before Walker's death in 2018 (at age 94), it was among the old ...

) and may have originated from the word ''

growl Growling is a low, guttural vocalization produced by predatory animals; producing ''growls''. Growling or growl may also refer to: Sounds * Death growl, the dominant singing style in death metal music * Stomach rumble, Stomach growl, or borborygm ...

'', which is a sound a person makes when they are angry. Walker coined several words related to comic strip art, although he attributed the coinage of "grawlix" to Charles D. Rice of ''This Week'' magazine in Walker's book ''Backstage at the Strips''.

Example

:"Come this fall,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

will debut a 7:30 p.m. sitcom starring 79-year-old

William Shatner William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1966 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...

. The title is $#*! My Dad Says. The opening profanity symbols (called grawlixes) will be pronounced "bleep," but we all know what it stands for."
— Michael Storey, ''The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette'', July 20, 2010

History

Etymology

Example

Notes

See also

References

Further reading