Sample Sentences for
profane
(editor-reviewed)

profane as in:  don't be profane

Show 3 more sentences
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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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    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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  • •
    The riders let them come and go unmolested, so long as they observed the peace of the sacred city, did not profane the Mother of Mountains or the Womb of the World, and honored the crones of the dosh khaleen with the traditional gifts of salt, silver, and seed.  (source)
    profane = show disrespect of (something thought sacred)
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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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