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profane

adjective · verb · noun

Simple meaning

Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

prohfayn

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹoʊˈfeɪn

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or scorn; blasphemous, impious.

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

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

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

verb

  1. Violate the sacred character of a place or language

  2. transitive

    To violate (something sacred); to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate

  3. transitive

    To put to a wrong or unworthy use; to debase; to abuse; to defile.

noun

  1. A person or thing that is profane.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or scorn; blasphemous, impious.

Used this way, profane is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Critical or judgemental
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

profane historyprofane languageprofane worldprofane swearingprofane literatureprofane personprofane eyesprofane hands

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: treating sacred things with contempt or disrespect or irreverence

irreverent

verb

Sense: violate the sacred character of a place or language

desecrateRaredebase

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.