sacrilege
/ˈsakrɪlɪdʒ
/noun [mass noun]
Violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred: putting ecclesiastical vestments to secular use was considered sacrilege...
- Intervention by authority was necessary for very serious sins such as adultery, murder, and sacrilege.
- A beard and a mustache have been added to the face of the devil in the picture, so that the killer is guilty of sacrilege no less than murder.
- For the Actionists, as for the artists cited above, there is no notion of sacrilege or blasphemy.
Synonyms
desecration, profanity, profaneness, profanation, blasphemy, impiety, impiousness, sin, irreverence, irreligion, irreligiousness, godlessness, unholiness, disrespect
Origin
Middle English: via Old French from Latin sacrilegium, from sacrilegus 'stealer of sacred things', from sacer, sacr- 'sacred' + legere 'take possession of'.
- dead-nettle
- dead on
- dead on one's feet
- deadpan
- dead president
- dead reckoning
- dead ringer
- deadrise
- Dead Sea
- Dead Sea scrolls
- dead set
- dead shot
- deadstick landing
- deadstock
- dead time
- dead to the world
- dead tree
- dead 'un
- dead water
- dead weight
- dead white
- dead white European male
- dead white male
- dead wood
- Deadwood