profane

On a never-ending feed we watch the cute and profane, sleepwalking toward an emotional state beyond shock as entertainment: the banality of passive consumption.

From Slate ● May 12, 2026

Under the First Amendment, anyone in the U.S. has the right to engage in peaceful protest, which can include yelling, using profane language, videotaping officers and following them in a car, legal experts say.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026

In 1431, the ecumenical Council of Basel ordered the deans and rectors of churches to expel "frivolities" and "profane abuses" from holy buildings, but implicitly allowed them to take place in the squares outside.

From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2024

I’m trying to explain the difference between sacred and profane time to my class on world religions, and baseball exemplifies the sacred variety.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2024

“For how long?” mocked the profane old man with a gleam of malicious elation.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

It reads: “He that violates his oath profanes the divinity of faith itself.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2022

It profanes and pulverizes any claim she might have on representing the interests of mothers and children.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 1, 2018

It is just not true that all today's modern art despises or profanes the past.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 18, 2013

When the wind is right, the indescribable perfume of some of the world's most thoroughly fermented tidal flats profanes the air.

From Time Magazine Archive

He blurs the prints which the shopmen sell, And intrudes on the hatter's trade, And profanes the hostler's stable-yard In the shape of a chamber-maid.

From The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851 by Various

This is both a twilight and a twilight zone; every virtue is a simulation of itself, a hollow or profaned image.

From The New Yorker ● May 21, 2019

All that is solid melts into air; all that is holy is profaned.

From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2015

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

From The Guardian ● Aug. 7, 2015

When the call comes from Chau that set this scene in motion, as Mike plays with Kaylee, we feel with him how his one last standing temple has been profaned.

From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2012

"The High Septon claims we profaned Baelor's Sept with blood,,after lying to him about our intent."

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

And of course there were important rules about the worship of Yahweh, including loving him, fearing him, emulating him, and not profaning his name.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

“Some have even claimed that only by being here, by my presence, I am traumatizing the Kercher family again, and profaning Meredith’s memory. They are wrong.”

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 15, 2019

This task is made more difficult by the novelist’s mustache-twirling contempt for profaning fiction with reality.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 17, 2018

Finally Garfield reached the scene in which Rodrigues steps on the fumie, profaning the God he believes in and renouncing the faith he has come halfway across the world to preach.

From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2016

Gwynneth, who had not stirred a feature or a limb, started indignantly at the sound of a profaning step; but had forgiven Fuller before he reached her hand with his own outstretched.

From Peccavi by Hornung, E. W. (Ernest William)