desecrate
/ˈdɛs.ɪ.kɹeɪ̯t/
desecrate verb: to profane or violate the sacredness or sanctity of something.
Verb
desecrate (third-person singular simple present desecrates, present participle desecrating, simple past and past participle desecrated)
- To profane or violate the sacredness or sanctity of something.
- 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...1916, James Whitcomb Riley, The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, volume 10
- Tonight nothing is too sacred, we desecrate and live in sin1984, Quorthon, “Necromansy”
- Synonyms:
- defile
- To remove the consecration from someone or something; to deconsecrate.
- Synonyms:
- deconsecrate, desanctify
- To change in an inappropriate and destructive manner.
- 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.1913, William Alexander Lambeth, Warren H. Manning, Thomas Jefferson as an Architect and a Designer of Landscapes.
- 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...1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
Adjective
desecrate (comparative more desecrate, superlative most desecrate)
- Desecrated.
- Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most abound—here are the temples most desecrate.1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Myster of Marie Rogêt
desecrate meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
desecrate in Tamil
- கெடு, தூய்மை கெடு, அசுத்தப் படுத்து, மாசு படுத்து, களங்கம் விளை
desecrate in Bengali
- অপবিত্র করা, অমর্যাদা করা
desecrate in Malayalam
- ഹീനമാക്കുക, അശുദ്ധമാക്കുക, ദുരുപയോഗപ്പെടുത്തുക, അപവിത്രമാക്കുക
desecrate in Kannada
- ಅಪವಿತ್ರಗೊಳಿಸು, ಭ್ರಷ್ಟಗೊಳಿಸು, ಕಳಂಕಗೊಳಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
- desecrate in Indonesian
- menodai
Examples of desecrate in a sentence
- In my time, we didn't desecrate our flag.
- It was not just the French who felt desecrated, but also the Allies.
- Some TV anchors foamed at the mouth over how the “modesty of Indian culture” had been desecrated.
Synonyms of desecrate
Antonyms
Forms of desecrate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | desecrates |
| present participle | desecrating |
| past participle | desecrated |
| past | desecrated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more desecrate |
| superlative | most desecrate |
Origin of desecrate
From de- + stem of consecrate.
Words formed from desecrate
- desecrated
- desecrater
- desecration
- desecrative
- desecrator
- undesecrate
Questions about desecrate
- What does desecrate mean?
- Desecrate means to profane or violate the sacredness or sanctity of something.
- What is desecrate in Tamil?
- Desecrate in Tamil is கெடு, தூய்மை கெடு, அசுத்தப் படுத்து. See Desecrate meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is desecrate?
- Desecrate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce desecrate?
- Desecrate is pronounced /ˈdɛs.ɪ.kɹeɪ̯t/.
- What is the past tense of desecrate?
- The past tense of desecrate is desecrated.
Words near desecrate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: desecrate (page history and authors); desecrate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Desecrate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); desecrate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); desecrate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-desecrate.ogg, en-au-desecrate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “desecrate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/desecrate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.