Pubic means of or near the sexual organs — the small area at the front of the body, between the belly and the legs. The two phrases you will meet all the time are pubic hair (the hair that grows there after puberty) and the pubic bone (the bone you can feel at the front of the pelvis). It is a medical and biology word. Doctors say it with a straight face. The word itself is not a joke and not a swear word; it is just a body-place label. Though actually, people stretch it a little in set phrases: pubic lice, the pubic region, pubic surgery. It always stays near that same patch of the body. It does not mean “open to everyone.” That is public, and one letter is the whole difference.