sacrilegious

English

Etymology

Compare sacrilege, Latin sacrilegus. From Latin sacer + legō (“steal something sacred”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sæk.ɹəˈlɪdʒ.əs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /sæk.ɹəˈlɪdʒ.əs/, /sæk.ɹəˈlidʒəs/
• Rhymes: -ɪdʒəs, -iːdʒəs

Adjective

sacrilegious (comparative more sacrilegious, superlative most sacrilegious)

1. Committing sacrilege; acting or speaking very disrespectfully toward what is held to be sacred.
   • 1831, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality, volume 3, page 26:

     At one end of the room was spread a square carpet, and on it stood a table, on which were placed two most sacrilegious-looking wax-tapers: it is to be feared some poor sinner stayed longer in purgatory from the abduction of his offering.

Related terms

• sacrilege

Translations

committing sacrilege

• Asturian: sacrílegu
• Bulgarian: кощунствен (koštunstven), светотатствен (bg) (svetotatstven)
• Catalan: sacríleg
• Esperanto: malpia
• French: sacrilège (fr)
• Galician: sacrílego
• German: gotteslästerlich (de)
• Hungarian: szentségtörő (hu)

• Italian: sacrilego (it)
• Latin: sacrilegus
• Occitan: sacrilèg
• Portuguese: sacrílego (pt)
• Russian: святота́тственный (ru) (svjatotátstvennyj), богоху́льный (ru) (bogoxúlʹnyj), богоху́льственный (ru) (bogoxúlʹstvennyj), кощу́нственный (ru) (koščúnstvennyj)
• Spanish: sacrílego (es)
• Swedish: vanhelgande