sacred

sacred 1 *holy, divine, blessed, spiritual, religious

Analogous words: dedicated, consecrated, hallowed (see DEVOTE): cherished, treasured, valued (see APPRECIATE)

Antonyms: profane

Contrasted words: secular, lay, temporal (see PROFANE)

2 Sacred, sacrosanct, inviolate, inviolable inviolate, all mean having such a character as to be protected by law, custom, tradition, or human respect against breach, intrusion, defilement, or profanation.

Sacred (see also HOLY) implies either a setting apart for a special and often exclusive use or end

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among civilized peoples, property is regarded as sacred to its owner

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a fund sacred to charity

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the den was sacred to the father of the family

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or a special character or quality which makes the person or thing held sacred an object of almost religious veneration or reverence

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[Louis XIII] saw that the things which happened increasingly strengthened the Royal Office which was sacred to him— Belloc

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"Grief of two years' standing is only a bad habit." Alice started, outraged. Her mother's grief was sacred to her— Shaw

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Sacrosanct, which in technical religious use implies the utmost of holiness or sacredness, in its more general use may retain this implication

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the strikers . . . respected the sacrosanct character of the mails, and were willing to undertake their delivery to the pier— Heiser

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but often tends to suggest an imputed rather than a genuinely possessed character justifying freedom from attack or violation; its emphasis in such use is usually somewhat ironical and occasionally slightly derisive

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etymology is after all not sacrosanct— Darrow

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she rebuffed explanations . . . they intruded on her privacy, that closely guarded preserve—as sacrosanct as her bureau drawers— Mary McCarthy

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Inviolate and inviolable apply to things (as laws, principles, treaties, agreements, institutions, persons, places, or objects) that for one reason or another are secure from breach, infringement, attack, intrusion, or injury; the terms differ from each other chiefly in that inviolate suggests the fact of not having been violated while inviolable implies a character which does not permit or which distinctly forbids violation; thus, one holds a vow inviolable but keeps his vow inviolate

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what seemed inviolable barriers are burst asunder in a trice— Meredith

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the Navahos . . . believed that their old gods dwelt in the fastnesses of that canyon ... an inviolate place—Cather

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Analogous words: protected, shielded, defended, guarded (see DEFEND): revered, reverenced, venerated (see REVERE)