profane

• Nothing is profane that serveth to the use of holy things. - 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1...

Synonyms: defiled mishallowed unhallowed common impious impure profane unholy

• profane authors
• A sonnet in praise of Rome was accepted as the effusion of genius and gratitude; and after the whole procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath was suspended before the shrine. - 1781, Edward Gibbon, The...
• The sacred is the emotional force which connects the part to the whole; the profane or the secular is that which has been broken off from, or has fallen off, its emotional bond to the universe. - 1981, William Irwin...

Synonyms: secular unsanctified unhallowed unholy irreligious temporal worldly ungodly impious godless areligious civil earthly laicist laicistic mundane nonreligious profane unconsecrated

Antonyms: faithful holy orthodox religious sacred sacrosanct spiritual

• a profane person, word, oath, or tongue
• the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC,...
• When asked to explain why he became a landlord, he told the Archbishop of York it was so he could close the pub on Sundays, and suppress the profane language and singing that came through the bar windows. - 1980, AA...

Synonyms: irreverent

• The nuns were employed in religious duties established in honour of St Clare, and to which no profane was ever admitted. - 1796, Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Folio Society, published 1985, page 244:

• One should not profane the name of God.
• to profane the Scriptures
• VVhen the vulgar ſort / Sit on their Ale-bench, vvith their cups and kannes, / Matters of ſtate be not their common talke, / Nor pure religion by their lips prophande. - 1600, [Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, Anthony...