Other forms: blasphemies
Blasphemy is speech that treats sacred things with contempt. Charged with blasphemy, sheer blasphemy, a blasphemy law.
It was a criminal offence in England until 2008 and remains one in many countries, in some cases carrying the death penalty — which makes it one of the sharpest points where free speech and religion meet. Figuratively it is used lightly for anything treated as sacred: saying so is blasphemy round here. Note blaspheme, blasphemous; and that the word slid into English blame by a different route from the same Greek.
1nounblasphemySpeech that treats sacred things with contempt.
“The priest accused the young poet of blasphemy for mocking the church.”
blasphemy is irreverent speech.
Greek blasphemia meant profane speech or slander. It came into English twice — as blasphemy through the church, and as blame through Old French, worn down along the way.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)mel-
Ancient Greek
βλασφημία — profanity
Ecclesiastical Latin
blasphēmia
Old French
blasfemie
Middle English
blasfemie
English, today
blasphemy
Built from
From Middle English blasfemie, from Old French blasfemie, from Ecclesiastical Latin blasphēmia, from Ancient Greek βλασφημία (“profanity”), from βλασφημέω (“to slander”). Displaced native tāl.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA