Etymology

profane

P3R1O1F4A1N1E1

Today it means: Unclean; ritually impure; unholy, desecrating a holy place or thing. Full definition →

Middle English prophane ← Middle French profane, prophaine, prophane ← Classical Latin profānus
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

profane · adjective, noun1

  1. Late Latin · derived fromprophānus
  2. Classical Latin · derived fromprofānus“not religious, unclean”
  3. Middle French · derived fromprofane, prophaine, prophane
  4. Middle English · inherited fromprophane
  5. English todayprofane

From Middle English prophane, from Middle French profane, prophaine, prophane and its etymon Classical Latin profānus (“not religious, unclean”) (also Late Latin prophānus), from pro- (“instead of”) + fānum (“temple”).

profane · verb2

  1. Late Latin · derived fromprophāno
  2. Classical Latin · derived fromprofānō
  3. Middle French · derived fromprofaner, prophaner
  4. Middle English · inherited fromprophanen
  5. English todayprofane

From Middle English prophanen, from Middle French profaner, prophaner and its etymon Classical Latin profānō (also Late Latin prophāno), from profānus + -ō (suffix forming verbs).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.