Sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy. In a less proper sense, any transgression against what is seen as the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. "Sacrilege" originates from the Latin sacer, sacred, and legere, to steal, as in Roman times it referred to the plundering of temples and graves. By the time of Cicero, sacrilege had adopted a more expansive meaning, including verbal offences against religion and undignified treatment of sacred objects.
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Famous quotes containing the word sacrilege:
“The anarchy, assassination, and sacrilege by which the Kingdom of France has been disgraced, desolated, and polluted for some years past cannot but have excited the strongest emotions of horror in every virtuous Briton. But within these days our hearts have been pierced by the recital of proceedings in that country more brutal than any recorded in the annals of the world.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)