profane

For those who feel that the contemporary-art world is awash in the profane, Mr. Cowan’s work offers a taste of the sacred.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026

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

It operates at the intersections of pop art and high-ish art, of the sacred and profane, of radicalism and die-hardism.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 1, 2025

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

“Why do you think I used it? I am not profane by accident. Aron, your father has been living for this.”

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

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

An' hyeh's another who meddles with thy servant and profanes thy day.

From In Happy Valley by John Fox

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, 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

Yet the opera’s few tender moments, set to what seemed like profaned echoes of Wagner’s “Tristan,” had a warmth that was gripping.

From New York Times ● May 9, 2010

Everest, the purists sniffed, had been debased and profaned.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer

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

Nearer and nearer came the sound, till, with beating heart, Ruth stepped into the moonlight, and laid her hand on the lips that were profaning the stillness of the midnight air.

From For John's Sake and Other Stories. by Annie Frances Perram