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sacred

UK/ˈseɪkɹɪd/US/ˈseɪkɹɪd/
adjectiveB12 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #1,949 of 15,258neutral

Something sacred is set apart as holy and not to be treated lightly. A sacred place, sacred texts, sacred to the memory of.

It belongs first to religion — sacred music, a sacred site — where it means dedicated to a god and protected by that dedication. The wider sense is anything a person or group holds beyond question: nothing is sacred, a sacred principle. Note sacred cow, meaning an idea or institution nobody dares criticise, which comes from the status of cattle in Hinduism, and that holy and sacred overlap without being interchangeable.

Definitions of sacred

  1. 1adjectivesacredSet apart as holy.B1

    “The whole hill is sacred and nothing may be built on it.”

    synonyms: holy, hallowed

  2. 2adjectivetreatedTreated as beyond question.B2

    “Saturday morning was sacred and nobody scheduled anything.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

sacred is a quality of being set apart.

Phrases it lives in

  • a sacred cow — something protected from criticism more by custom than by argument

Where it comes from

Latin sacer meant holy and, oddly, also accursed — both senses of set apart from ordinary use. Sacrifice, sacrament and consecrate are the same root, and the word's original meaning is separation rather than goodness.

  1. Middle English

    sacred

  2. English, today

    sacred

Built from

  • sakeren · Middle English — to make holy, hallow

From Middle English sacred, isacred, past participle of sacren, sakeren (“to make holy, hallow”), equivalent to sacre + -ed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Belief & Ritual

Practise this word

sacred in the wild

  • The concept applies also to sacred spaces such as temenoi, sacred groves, village greens, pagodas and holy wells, Mandala Gardens and the creation of religious and spiritual art.

    Sacred geometry

  • Some religions, or parts of them, regard the language of their sacred texts as in itself sacred.

    Sacred language

  • The mountain is considered sacred in Bon, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.

    Mount Kailash

  • Many cultures devoted considerable resources to their sacred architecture and places of worship.

    Sacral architecture

  • Most of the time they are considered sacred not just because of their content, but because communities treat them as important sources for belief, practice, and moral guidance.

    Religious text

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.