Meanings
present singular third person desacralizes · participle present desacralizing · participle past desacralized · past desacralized · alternative desacralise
- transitivelifestyleTo remove the sacredness of.
If whiteness bespoke purity and godliness, then poor white trash implied an ungodly, desacralized, polluted whiteness.
2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 471 more example
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.
2013, Isher-Paul Sahni, “More than Horseplay”, in Studies in Popular Culture, volume 35, page 74Synonyms: desanctify, desecrate
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo remove the sacredness of.
More synonyms by meaning
verbtransfer from ecclesiastical to civil possession, use, or control
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*de
- Proto-Indo-European*déh₁
- Proto-Italic*dē
- Latindē
- Latindē-
- Englishde-
- Englishsacral
- Englishsacralize
- Englishdesacralize
Translations
Finnish maallistaa
- maallistaato remove the sacredness of
Cite this entry
desacralize. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desacralize
“desacralize.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desacralize. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “desacralize,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desacralize.
Source: desacralize on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.