desacralize

English

Alternative forms

• desacralise

Etymology

de- +‎ sacralize

Verb

desacralize (third-person singular simple present desacralizes, present participle desacralizing, simple past and past participle desacralized)

1. (religion, transitive) To remove the sacredness of.
   • 2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 47:

     If whiteness bespoke purity and godliness, then poor white trash implied an ungodly, desacralized, polluted whiteness.

   • 2013, Isher-Paul Sahni, “More than Horseplay”, in Studies in Popular Culture, volume 35, page 74:

     Still, certain programmatic commitments [of avant-garde art] can be identified: championing the volatile eventness of corporeal performances, […] consciously embracing the desacralizing and subversive, and disrupting conventional norms by placing the strange and unexpected in otherwise banal places.

Synonyms

• desanctify, desecrate; see also Thesaurus:desecrate

Antonyms

• sacralize; see also Thesaurus:consecrate

Derived terms

• desacralization