Word.ws English Dictionary

desecrating

desecrating is the present participle and gerund of desecrate.

Meaning of desecrate

Verb

desecrate (third-person singular simple present desecrates, present participle desecrating, simple past and past participle desecrated)

  1. (ambitransitive) 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
    Synonyms:
    defile
  2. (transitive) To remove the consecration from someone or something; to deconsecrate.
  3. (transitive) 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.

See all 4 meanings of desecrate

Questions about desecrating

What is desecrating the present participle and gerund of?
Desecrating is the present participle and gerund of desecrate.

Words near desecrating in the dictionary

  1. desecrater
  2. desecraters
  3. desecrates
  4. desecratest
  5. desecrateth
  6. desecrating
  7. desecration
  8. desecrations
  9. desecrator
  10. desecrators
  11. desecularisation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: desecrating (page history and authors); desecrate (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.

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Cite this entry: “desecrating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/desecrating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.