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profane

Pronunciation: /pɹəˈfeɪn/

The English word “profane” has 8 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing.
  2. Not sacred or holy, unconsecrated; relating to non-religious matters, secular.
  3. Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or scorn; blasphemous, impious.
  4. Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain.

noun

  1. A person or thing that is profane.
  2. A person not a Mason.

verb

  1. To violate (something sacred); to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate
  2. To put to a wrong or unworthy use; to debase; to abuse; to defile.

Etymology

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”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.