Sense file
How the sense moved
The archive follows the dated record first, then reads the social or rhetorical pressure that hardened, softened, narrowed, or reversed the word.
Older meaning
Lay, nonclerical, or unlearned.
Modern meaning
Crude, indecent, or sexually offensive.
Research lens
This belongs in the archive's class-and-status shelf: lack of clerical learning becomes moral suspicion.
Meaning trail
Root
lay or nonclerical
The contrast was with clerical learning.
Middle path
uneducated or coarse
Lack of learning became a character judgment.
Now
indecent
The moral charge swallowed the older social distinction.