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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

profane.

Unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/pɹəˈfeɪn/UK/pɹəˈfeɪn/US/pɹoʊˈfeɪn/US
  1. Unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing.

  2. Not sacred or holy, unconsecrated; relating to non-religious matters, secular.

    profane authors
  3. Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or scorn; blasphemous, impious.

  4. Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain.

    a profane person, word, oath, or tongue
Where this word comes from

From Middle English prophane, from Middle French profane, prophaine, prophane and its etymon Classical Latin profānus (“not religious, unclean”) (also Late Latin prophānus), from pro- (“instead of”) + fānum (“temple”).

noun/pɹəˈfeɪn/UK/pɹəˈfeɪn/US/pɹoʊˈfeɪn/US
  1. A person or thing that is profane.

  2. A person not a Mason.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English prophane, from Middle French profane, prophaine, prophane and its etymon Classical Latin profānus (“not religious, unclean”) (also Late Latin prophānus), from pro- (“instead of”) + fānum (“temple”).

verb/pɹəˈfeɪn/UK/pɹəˈfeɪn/US/pɹoʊˈfeɪn/US
  1. To violate (something sacred); to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate

    transitive
    One should not profane the name of God.
    to profane the Scriptures
  2. To put to a wrong or unworthy use; to debase; to abuse; to defile.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English prophanen, from Middle French profaner, prophaner and its etymon Classical Latin profānō (also Late Latin prophāno), from profānus + -ō (suffix forming verbs).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.