Sacred

/ˈseɪkɹɪd/ · adjective

Meaning

Characterized by solemn religious ceremony or religious use, especially, in a positive sense; consecrated, made holy..

Definitions by Sense

1. Characterized by solemn religious ceremony or religious use, especially, in a positive sense; consecrated, made holy.
2. Religious; relating to religion, or to the services of religion; not secular
3. Spiritual; concerned with metaphysics.
4. Designated or exalted by a divine sanction; possessing the highest title to obedience, honor, reverence, or veneration; entitled to extreme reverence; venerable.
5. Not to be profaned or violated; inviolable.
6. (followed by the preposition "to") Consecrated; dedicated; devoted
7. (archaic) Solemnly devoted, in a bad sense, as to evil, vengeance, curse, or the like; accursed; baleful.
8. simple past and past participle of sacre

Example Sentences

a sacred place

a sacred day

sacred service

November 30 2016, Joe Whittle writing in The Guardian, We opened eyes': at Standing Rock, my fellow Native Americans make history Their intent was to march peacefully down a county road to DAPL headquarters, where tribal elders would pray and hold ceremony to bless the sacred sites being disturbed by pipeline construction.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea.

In doing this I particularly instructed my informant to tell his tale as if he were relating it to his own people, and to use the same words that he would use if he were recounting similar tales to them when assembled in a sacred house.

The cross is that high symbol of sacred service, the devotion of one's life to the welfare and salvation of one's fellows. The cross is not the symbol of the sacrifice of the innocent Son of God in the place of guilty sinners and in order to appease the wrath of an offended God, but it does stand forever, on earth and throughout a vast universe, as a sacred symbol of the good bestowing themselves upon the evil and thereby saving them by this very devotion of love.

The sacred is the emotional force which connects the part to the whole; the profane or the secular is that which has been broken off from, or has fallen off, its emotional bond to the universe.

Synonyms for sacred

Antonyms for sacred

Related Words

Word Forms

• more sacred
• most sacred

Usage Notes

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