Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use profane in a sentence

20 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Profane means unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing. Example: “One should not profane the name of God.”

Examples of profane by meaning

adjectiveNot sacred or holy, unconsecrated; relating to non-religious matters, secular.

  • The sacred is the emotional force which connects the part to the whole; the profane or the secular is that which has been broken off from, or has fallen off, its emotional bond to the universe.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London...

adjectiveIrreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain.

  • a profane person, word, oath, or tongue
  • When asked to explain why he became a landlord, he told the Archbishop of York it was so he could close the pub on Sundays, and suppress the profane language and singing that came through the bar windows.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 102

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

  • One should not profane the name of God.
  • to profane the Scriptures

More sentences with profane

  • If we would exercise ourselves unto godliness, we must refuse profane and old-womanish tales.2001, Witness Lee, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, page 73. From the entry old-womanish
  • Such a drastic measure as the desecration of a functioning temple and conversion to profane use are almost unimaginable.2013, Andreas J. M. Kropp, Images and Monuments of Near Eastern Dynasts, 100 bc–ad 100, Oxford, Oxon: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page…. From the entry cavea
  • Man becomes aware of the sacred, because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane.1959, Mircea Eliade, “Introduction”, in Willard R. Trask, transl., The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Harvest Book; HB…. From the entry hierophany
  • It is a note scornful, defiant, often ribald and profane, that comes into the songs of the goliards and troubadours.1920, A. S. Turberville, Mediæval Heresy & the Inquisition, London: Crosby Lockwood and Son. From the entry goliard
  • Paul brands as ‘profane and old-wifish myths’ (1 Ti 4⁷).1906, David Smith, “Education”, in James Hastings, John A[lexander] Selbie, John C[hisholm] Lambert, editors, A Dictionary of Christ and…. From the entry old-wifish
  • In the last analysis, the sacred and profane modes of being depend upon the different positions that man has conquered in the cosmos."2014, Elazar Barkan, Karen Barkey, Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites, →ISBN. From the entry sacred
  • As insults, rips and profanes unsettled the tree tops, the dogs of demonism concluded licking up Thump's plasma, secured glares back up.2012, Khalid Patel, Hollow Shotguns. From the entry lickery
  • Underwood to be an intense, profane little man, whose father in a fey fit of humor christened Braxton Bragg, a name Mr.1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC. From the entry fey
  • Unlike Christianity, which considers the body purely profane, Islam includes the body within the sacred; therefore, the body, like all other sensible things, is linked to the extrasensible.2015, Laura U. Marks, Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image, page 325. From the entry extrasensible
  • This unexplored domain of maledictology offers unique possibilities to those nefarious individuals who may desire to convey either erotic, lecherous, licentious or profane and abusive messages.2005, Reinhold Aman, Maledicta, volume 10, page 44. From the entry maledictology
  • In performing this fantasticizing operation on language, embroiderers, like calligraphers, must keep in mind that their work is conducted in the liminal region between the sacred and profane.1999, Voices: The Wisconsin Review of African Literatures. From the entry fantasticize
  • Examples are given below exemplifying epimeristic and schedographic techniques devoted to sacred and profane texts, and the sort of information that was thought fit to include within their range.1993, R[obert] H[enry] Robins, The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History, Berlin; New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 130. From the entry schedographic
  • They are the beliefs of non-believers and the thoughts of non-thinkers, the parrot cries of a generation malformed by secular education and mismoulded by an entirely profane human environment.1977, Gai Eaton, King of the Castle, page 110. From the entry mismould
  • Slowly, the term reveals itself as an expression of fundamental tensions and deep structural antinomies: between the sacred and the profane, purity and impurity, morality and immorality, cleanliness and dirt.2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 2. From the entry antinomy
  • The major themes in Eliade’s thought are symbol, myth, and ritual¹, hierophanies, the sacred and the profane, the coincidentia oppositorum, the repetition of archetypal structures², illud tempus, and homo religiosus.1994, Subrata Kumar Chakrabarti, “1: Hierophany”, in Offshore Structure Modeling, page 7. From the entry hierophanies

Meaning of profane

  1. adjective Unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing.
  2. adjective Not sacred or holy, unconsecrated; relating to non-religious matters, secular.
  3. adjective Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or scorn; blasphemous, impious.

Full definition of profane

Questions about profane in a sentence

How do you use profane in a sentence?
Profane is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “One should not profane the name of God.”
What is a short sentence with profane?
“to profane the Scriptures”
What does profane mean?
Profane means unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: profane (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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