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profane

[pruh-fayn, proh-] / prəˈfeɪn, proʊ- /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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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

The Church saw vinum clarum as a profane wine, and its consumption was not imbued with Christian symbolism, nor attached to any table ceremony.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2024

Sacred time does not “pass” like profane time but somehow suspends.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2024

He strung ordinary sentences together and they came out sounding either like the most profane curses or like comical poetry.

From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou

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

The climax comes when Charlie puts the house up for sale, profanes their devotions, and triumphantly vilifies mother.

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, 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

"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

This bears mentioning since Hargitay opened Monday’s Emmys telecast by performing “I Love TV Screens,” profaning Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” in doing so.

From Salon ● Sep. 15, 2026

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

As 'every one' was out of town perhaps the servants, in the extravagance of their leisure, were profaning the tables.

From A London Life and Other Tales by Henry James




Vocabulary lists containing profane


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