desecrate
/ˈdɛs.ɪ.kɹeɪ̯t/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.30 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To profane or violate the sacredness or sanctity of something.
adj
Example Sentences
- "It's reform -- reform! You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and go to work, and pay your debts, and gravitate back into Sunday-school, where you can make love to the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion, and desecrate the sanctity of the innermost pale of the church by confessions at Class of your 'thorough conversion'!"
- "Tonight nothing is too sacred, we desecrate and live in sin"
- "A subsequent owner has desecrated the main hall and robbed it of its grandeur by putting in a floor just beneath the circular windows in order to make an upper room over the hall."
- "Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […] A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe."
- "Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most abound—here are the temples most desecrate."
Etymology
From de- + stem of consecrate.
Usage
Inflected Forms
desecrates (present, singular)
desecrating (participle, present)
desecrated (participle, past)
desecrated (past)
more desecrate (comparative)
most desecrate (superlative)