sacred
/ˈseɪkɹɪd/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.24 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Characterized by solemn religious ceremony or religious use, especially, in a positive sense; consecrated, made holy.
adj
Spiritual; concerned with metaphysics.
adj
Designated or exalted by a divine sanction; possessing the highest title to obedience, honor, reverence, or veneration; entitled to extreme reverence; venerable.
adj
Not to be profaned or violated; inviolable.
adj
adj
Solemnly devoted, in a bad sense, as to evil, vengeance, curse, or the like; accursed; baleful.
Archaic
verb
simple past and past participle of sacre
Example Sentences
- "a sacred place"
- "a sacred day"
- "sacred service"
- "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea."
- "In doing this I particularly instructed my informant to tell his tale as if he were relating it to his own people, and to use the same words that he would use if he were recounting similar tales to them when assembled in a sacred house."
- "The cross is that high symbol of sacred service, the devotion of one's life to the welfare and salvation of one's fellows. The cross is not the symbol of the sacrifice of the innocent Son of God in the place of guilty sinners and in order to appease the wrath of an offended God, but it does stand forever, on earth and throughout a vast universe, as a sacred symbol of the good bestowing themselves upon the evil and thereby saving them by this very devotion of love."
Etymology
From Middle English sacred, isacred, past participle of sacren, sakeren (“to make holy, hallow”), equivalent to sacre + -ed.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Religion.
Inflected Forms
more sacred (comparative)
most sacred (superlative)