Converse of object

• mutter: The big man was still alive, curled into a tight ball. Get up. J.J. muttered an obscenity.

• shout: He kept shouting obscenities around the court, claiming to be in love with her!

• scream: John, usually very cool and tough, became pale, trembled and screamed terrible obscenities at me.

• contain: Please be aware that our spam filter deletes material that contains obscenities.

• use: They were screaming at him, using obscenities, being very aggressive.

Adjective modifier

• general: However, in the milieu of general obscenity it passes as harmless parlance.

• so-called: The objection to Husain is not the so-called obscenity of his paintings.

• ultimate: War is the ultimate in criminality, the ultimate obscenity, the ultimate crime against humanity.

• moral: That people are compelled to divert resources in this way is surely a moral obscenity.

• only: The only obscenity is something called British Justice An important avenue of porn distribution in the UK is via mail order.

Modifies a noun

• law: The tourist could now face up to three months in jail under India's obscenity laws.

• charge: The latter publication, which Barker co-edited, delivered him trembling to the dock of the Old Bailey on an obscenity charge in 1973.

• case: Maxwell was a prosecution witness in the obscenity case brought against the American novel Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1966.

• prosecution: The satisfyingly late Mary Whitehouse failed in her attempt to bring an obscenity prosecution against the play's original director, Michael Bogdanov.

Preposition: of

• war: This comparison is a powerful illustration of the obscenity of war.

• kind: Excessive use of obscenities of any kind is strongly discouraged.