Profane
/prəˈfeɪn/noun
Not sacred or religious; irreverent or disrespectful toward what is considered holy.
Did you know?It comes from Latin profānus, originally meaning “outside the temple,” from pro- (“before, outside”) + fānum (“temple, shrine”), so the “dark” edge was once about sacred boundaries, not just bad language.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*dheh₁-
“to set, place, put”
Latin
Latin
fānum
“a temple or shrine, a place set apart as sacred”
Latin
Latin
profānus
“not sacred; outside a temple, secular”
Old French
Old French
profan
“irreverent, unholy, secular”
Middle English
English
profane
“unholy, irreverent, or secular”
Modern English
English
profane
“not sacred or religious; irreverent or disrespectful toward what is considered holy”