Sample Sentences for
profane
(editor-reviewed)

profane as in:  don't be profane

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    Local opinion held Mr. Underwood to be an intense, profane little man, whose father in a fey fit of humor christened Braxton Bragg, a name Mr. Underwood had done his best to live down.  (source)
    profane = showing no respect for accepted standards of behavior
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    My dissertation gave a different shape to history, one that was neither Mormon nor anti-Mormon, neither spiritual nor profane.  (source)
    profane = without respect for things thought sacred
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    Cassie was yelling and cursing and carrying on in the most profane language I had ever heard from her about how much she hated us.  (source)
    profane = obscene (shockingly offensive by accepted standards)
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Show 10 more with 10 word variations
  • •
    It seems profane somehow—the world clean, the air warm—when scores of young men lay cold in their coffins, waiting to return to the earth.  (source)
    profane = disrespectful (of sacred things)
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    Everest, the purists sniffed, had been debased and profaned.  (source)
    profaned = spoiled by disrespectful treatment
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    It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so I asked him point-blank, "Why may I not go tonight?"†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    The crowd moved outside, where loudly and profanely they attacked the stolid immovability of a system run amuck.†  (source)
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    And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.†  (source)
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    My mind shudders when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that, near as she is to the grave, she should be so given up to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    She used to add, with a smirk that unprofane people can't control when venturing into profanity, "and wash as far as possible, then wash possible."  (source)
    unprofane = respectful of things thought sacred
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unprofane means not and reverses the meaning of profane. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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    Her first impulse was to curse him for profaning the house when the body of her husband was still warm in the grave.†  (source)
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    His own image started forth a profaner of the cloister, a heretic franciscan, willing and willing not to serve, spinning like Gherardino da Borgo San Donnino, a lithe web of sophistry and whispering in her ear.†  (source)
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    They never join their voices in praise, and it would seem that they are among the profanest of the idolatrous.†  (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus

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The other egwugwu immediately surrounded their desecrated companion, to shield him from the profane gaze of women and children, and led him away.  (source)
profane = unholy
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