Expletive may refer to: Expletive (linguistics), a word or phrase that is not needed to express the basic meaning of the sentence Expletive pronoun, a pronoun used as subject or other verb argument that is meaningless but syntactically required Expletive attributive, a word that contributes nothing to meaning but suggests the strength of feeling of the speaker Profanity or swear word, a word or expression that is strongly impolite or offensive See also Expletive infixation, morphological process of inserting expletive attributive or profanity into a word