sacrosanct

US/ˈsæk.ɹoʊˌsæŋkt/

adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,336 of 15,258neutral

Sacrosanct means so sacred that it must never be touched or changed. A sacrosanct principle, nothing is sacrosanct, treated as sacrosanct.

It is used most often in the negative, and saying nothing is sacrosanct is how any review announces that everything is up for change. The Latin joins sacred and holy, which is as strong as the language could make it.

Definitions of sacrosanct

1adjectivesacrosanctSo sacred that it must never be touched or changed.C2
“In our house, Sunday lunch together is sacrosanct; nobody is allowed to miss it.”

sacrosanct is a quality.

Remember it

SACROsanct → too SACRED to touch

It is treated as sacred, and nobody is allowed to touch it, let alone change it.

hooks ontosacred

Where it comes from

Latin
sacrōsānctus
English, today
sacrosanct

Learned borrowing from Latin sacrōsānctus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

sacrosanct in the wild

The tribunes were sacrosanct, meaning that any assault on their person was punishable by death.
Tribune of the plebs
The offender was considered as having harmed the gods or a god, as well as the sacrosanct person and therefore accursed to the gods or a god.
Sacrosanctity
Dowling was a strong opponent of such expansion, describing the county boundary as "sacrosanct".
Dick Dowling
In contrast, the Avestan language texts remained sacrosanct and continued to be recited in the Avestan language, which was considered a sacred language.
Zend
The instrument was considered to be sacrosanct and playing it was a rite bound to taboos.
Jadagan

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.

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