Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred.
- adj. Nonreligious in subject matter, form, or use; secular: sacred and profane music.
- adj. Not admitted into a body of secret knowledge or ritual; uninitiated.
- adj. Vulgar; coarse.
- v. To treat with irreverence: profane the name of God.
- v. To put to an improper, unworthy, or degrading use; abuse.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not sacred, or not devoted to sacred purposes; not possessing any peculiar sanctity; unconsecrated; secular: as, a profane place; profane history (that is, history other than Biblical); profane authors.
- Irreverent toward God or holy things; speaking or spoken, acting or acted, in manifest or implied contempt of sacred things; blasphemous: as, profane language; profane swearing.
- Not initiated into certain religious rites; hence, of less dignity or standing; inferior; common.
- Synonyms Temporal, unhallowed, unholy.
- Impious, Atheistic, etc. (see irreligious); irreverent, sacrilegious.
- To treat as if not sacred or deserving reverence; violate, as anything sacred; treat with irreverence, impiety, or contempt; pollute; desecrate.
- To put to a wrong use; employ basely or unworthily.
- To make known; make common: said of something confined to an initiated few.
- To speak or behave blasphemously or profanely.
Wiktionary
- adj. Unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing.
- adj. Not sacred or holy, unconsecrated; relating to non-religious matters, secular.
- adj. Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or undue familiarity; blasphemous, impious. Hence, specifically; Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain; given to swearing; blasphemous; as, a profane person, word, oath, or tongue.
- n. A person or thing that is profane.
- n. freemasonry A person not a Mason.
- v. transitive To violate, as anything sacred; to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate; to pollute; as, to profane the name of God; to profane the Scriptures, or the ordinance of God.
- v. transitive To put to a wrong or unworthy use; to make a base employment of; to debase; to abuse; to defile.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not sacred or holy; not possessing peculiar sanctity; unconsecrated; hence, relating to matters other than sacred; secular; -- opposed to
sacred ,religious , orinspired . - adj. Unclean; impure; polluted; unholy.
- adj. Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or undue familiarity; irreverent; impious. Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain; given to swearing; blasphemous.
- v. To violate, as anything sacred; to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate; to pollute
- v. To put to a wrong or unworthy use; to make a base employment of; to debase; to abuse; to defile.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not holy because unconsecrated or impure or defiled
- adj. grossly irreverent toward what is held to be sacred
- v. corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality
- adj. characterized by profanity or cursing
- v. violate the sacred character of a place or language
- adj. not concerned with or devoted to religion
Etymologies
- From Middle French prophane, from Latin profānus ("not religious, unclean"), from pro- ("before") + fānum ("temple"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English prophane, from Old French, from Latin profānus, from prō fānō, in front of the temple : prō-, before, outside; see pro- + fānō, ablative of fānum, temple. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word profane comes from the Latin profanus which literally means from the temple.”
“So even that which we call profane, even that which we call diabolical is a different face of the same divine intelligence.”
“An online video showed actor Christian Bale in profane rant against a crew member who had walked into a shot on a film set.”
“Which words are exactly considered profane is still unclear, but the bill does have a list of qualifications for profanity including words or actions that are lewd, vulgar or indecent in nature.”
“I write sentences with out a fuck'in profane word in it all the time.”
“The spring season in New York is, happily and atypically, plump with demonstrations of such genre bending, with entrancingly wicked shows that extract the profane from the sacred and the rot from the pillars of society.”
“That 's what I call a profane remark, Ellery Davenport," she said.”
“And the word profane is usually taken in the Scripture for the same with common; and consequently their contraries, holy and proper, in the kingdom of God must be the same also.”
Leviathan, or, The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill
“Today we received a shipment of a new item with a name profane enough that I can't use it here on Epinions.”
“Eyewitness News asked Mayor Nagin specifically what he felt Stacey Head said that he characterized as profane and race baiting, but he did not answer the question, saying only that his comments "were based upon a few different things, the tape and eyewitness reports.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘profane’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Naresh_Special
portent, organically, malicious, sham, olfactory, vertebrates, protuberance, sensilla, flagitious, pleonastic, exiguous, wayward and 102 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Words starting with PRO
I've noticed many, many words start with PRO and this is just a collection of them.
professional, pronunciation, Prolagus, probable, prog, proximity, profit, procrastincate, prom, pronoun, promise, proactive and 206 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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Imbible Code ✞
Christian word branding; common English word-associatives connected to Bible terminology or scripture.
I also have a general Bible-word list.god, father, son, trinity, sacrament, knowledge, serpent, flood, evil, good, spirit, revelation and 118 more...
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jaydrox's list
Mah list!
mediocracy, captivatingly, devastatingly, dazedly, heavenly, flawless, copious, conviction, synoptic, amalgamation, prefatory, precursory and 150 more...
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religion
who is this god person, anyway? (--Douglas Adams)
sachristy, vestry, diocese, papal, cardinal, pope, polygamy, seven, father, chaplain, vestments, blessing and 227 more...
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beyond pale
Words meaning or invoking the different aspects of pale.
Not just colour, but also the ideas of impermanence, illness, weakness. (Just not the two noun forms – a thin strip of metal or woo...pale, pallid, wan, light, misty, ethereal, cream, dim, white, thin, waning, colourless and 62 more...
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alpha omega αώ terms
two words that say it all and contrast/complement one another
startling end, az wy, az wye, round trip, circle around, tune gap, begin end, collect lection, lectio lectitandos, dash all, together alone, go-slow stopwatch and 64 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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wakcy's Words
apocalypse, interlude, drome, absolution, atrocity, ruse, pristine, mason, reparable, deteriorate, pyramid, hipster and 283 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Words I Should Use More Often
Words that I'll use to sound erudite.
fungible, aggrandizement, tete-a-tete, sententious, serendipitous, fortuitous, lugubrious, declivity, propitiatory, volubility, august, tenebrous and 214 more...
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Descriptive
The present, the future. Goals, wishes, hopes.
capricious, sericeous, sleek, flawless, charming, skilled, long-haired, versatile, beautiful, witty, fair, thin and 145 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for profane.
fbharjo Etymologies
Middle English prophane, from Old French, from Latin profānus, from prō fānō, in front of the temple : prō-, before, outside; see pro-1 + fānō, ablative of fānum, temple; see dhēs- in Indo-European roots.
Isn't it amazing the heat generated when prop(what the h...)ane is released and alighted? It is an outside, marginal realm. Feb 29, 2012
writer723 what does sacred have to do with a great utterance of profanity; i.e. f@#k, $h&t May 2, 2011
bilby "Sneerers and prophane wits may perhaps laugh at her first fright: yet my graver reader, when he considers the time of night, the summons from her bed, and the situation in which she found her master, will highly justify and applaud her conduct, unless the prudence which must be supposed to attend maidens at that period of life at which Mrs. Deborah had arrived, should a little lessen his admiration."
- Henry Fielding, 'The History of Tom Jones'. Sep 8, 2009