Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or an instance of profaning; desecration.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of violating sacred things, or of treating them with contempt or irreverence; desecration: as, the profanation of the Lord's day; the profanation of a sanctuary.
  • noun The act of treating with too little reserve or delicacy, or of making common.
  • noun Synonyms Profanation, Desecration, Sacrileye, pollution. The first three words express offenses, amounting almost or quite to outrages, against the religious sentiment, in connection with places, days, etc., taking off their sacred character. They are in the order of strength. Profanation is perhaps most distinctly a matter of irreverence. Sacrilege seems most directly an invasion of the rights of God.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of violating sacred things, or of treating them with contempt or irreverence; irreverent or too familiar treatment or use of what is sacred; desecration
  • noun The act of treating with abuse or disrespect, or with undue publicity, or lack of delicacy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of profaning; desecration, blasphemous behaviour, defilement.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun blasphemous behavior; the act of depriving something of its sacred character
  • noun degradation of something worthy of respect; cheapening

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French prophanation, profanation, and its source, Late Latin profanatio, from the participle stem of Latin profānāre.

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